Clearing out my overflowing freezer the other day, I came across two small Ziploc snack bags, each containing small portions of leftover pesto (parsley, garlic and butter in one, kale in the other).
The discovery reminded me of how Cynthia and I started Sugo Sauces several years ago, as a result of a conversation we had at our children's elementary school International night.
Cynthia had brought a beautiful, bright green dish of linguine tossed with pesto to share with other families as an example of her husband's northern Italian cuisine, and we got to talking about how much we both loved to make pesto at home, and how it was impossible to find any commercial pesto sauces we liked enough to buy in stores.
We discovered that we had both taken to freezing individual portions of pesto at home, to have on hand whenever we didn't have time or the ingredients to make it from scratch. And we talked about the joy we experienced in stumbling across a forgotten baggie in our freezer in the middle of winter, defrosting it in the microwave or in a mug of hot water while the pasta cooked, and serving it for dinner, when the burst of summer flavor was the perfect pick-me-up on a cold, dark evening.
Several months later, we talked about making and selling our own premium fresh pesto sauces - made using high-quality, authentic ingredients, simply blended according to traditional Italian recipes - and selling them at farmer's markets and in local stores.
Now that we make and sell our Sugo Sauces premium fresh pesto sauces year-round professionally, of course, we have less need to freeze any ourselves (although our sauces do freeze well). But on a dark, rainy Monday evening in January, when the snow is beginning to spit and swirl outside, a bowl of warm, fragrant pesto can still bring me joy, and provide me with a welcome reminder that summer will soon be here again.
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