scavenger's pesto

a newfound purpose for frozen peas

Greetings from Massachusetts where I’m tucked away in my parents’ empty home for the week, partially to do research for my book, partially to make use of an empty suburban kitchen with a dishwasher. My apartment kitchen has precisely zero inches of counter space which means that even making a little peanut butter sandwich here feels like an act of luxury.

I arrived Friday night with a few groceries—a bag of broccoli, four prepackaged chicken burgers, one avocado, two bananas, an entire bag of thin mint chocolate covered pretzels from Costco—that I’d lifted from my older sibling’s house earlier that day. I resolved, stubbornly and mostly for no reason, to go as long as possible without buying groceries aside from the milk and bread and yogurt I’d just grabbed at Hannaford’s. It’s this odd ascetic-puritanical wasp streak lurking inside me. I lasted a solid three days.

I dropped my things and took inventory of my parents’ kitchen: plenty of pasta, bag of lentils, XL bag of granola, hard cheese and a single lemon in the fridge, a well-stocked freezer that I knew held the most treasure. On day one I poached a hulk-sized chicken breast I found in there and turned it into chicken salad—mayo, vinegar-soaked chopped onion, grainy mustard, salt and pepper. The poaching liquid turned to stock thanks to a spoonful of bouillon paste; we used it for the aforementioned soup. On day two I learned that avocado is really good on a chicken salad sandwich. Then I began to consider that bag of peas.

I always keep frozen peas on hand but rarely use them. I appreciate their pragmatism, but their texture often leaves me just disappointed enough to relegate them to last-ditch scavenger meals: their skins are wrinkly, their bellies dry. I add them to pasta because green stuff is good for me and this stuff is economical, not because I look at them and think yum yum yum. But this weekend for the first time I looked at them and thought pesto. 

pesto on toast, destined for a chicken salad sandwich