O.K., I admit it. I wiffed on the piscine version of Is My Blog Burning. I had this great recipe worked out involving little foil envelopes and rosemary skewers and the grill but it was not to be. I feel awful about it and the worst thing is that I have no excuse. I simply forgot all about it until I started seeing the posts. All I can say is that it won't happen again.


By way of apology, I offer a recipe instead for spaghetti with basil garlic sauce. The foundation for this came from Patricia Wells' new The Provence Cookbook, which is wonderful in every regard (I tried to give it as good a review on Amazon as I could without being gushing although I wish now I had been more specific about the recipes that I had tried before writing).


Anyway, Wells' recipe calls for a portion of a basil sauce for which a second recipe is offered. That second recipe requires four cups of basil, an amount that I was not willing to sacrifice since I only have two basil plants and although they are doing well they need to see me through the summer. So I did a little messing around and came up with:


First, prepare a pound of spaghetti by whatever method you choose. I like lots and lots of very well salted water, but that's just me. While the spaghetti is cooking, prepare the sauce by placing into a food processor or blender two large egg yolks, four largish cloves of garlic (peeled), about a cup of large basil leaves (rinsed), a quarter cup of olive oil and a quarter cup of freshly grated parmesan. Pulse to process, emulsifying the oil and egg yolks so that the basil and garlic become suspended in the mixture. It should be very viscous and somewhat mayo-like. Transfer the sauce to a large bowl. Immediately after the cooked spaghetti is drained, move about a quarter of it over to the sauce and blend well (this step "cooks" the egg yolk in the heat of the noodles). Add the remainder of the spaghetti, blend to coat with the sauce, season lightly to taste and serve with a green salad and a nice rosé.