Ed's Pesto

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a legacy recipe

FRESH IS BEST, and in our case it’s about fresh pesto, made right here in the Silicon Valley. As a single dad, providing dinner for a finicky teenage daughter was a bit of a challenge. Fast food and pre=packaged meals got old real fast. I mean, I could grill with the best of them but I really wanted to do better. My daughter didn’t like MY red sauce, so one week I decided I’d try pesto, since it was green :) I bought a bottle from the local “big market”, opened it and was gravely disappointed. Too much salt! She looked at me like “you wouln’t dare serve that to me.” So that started a journey that took many tries and more than a few sour looks. I tried mixing together some prepared jars from the store, and heard about an authentic brand from Italy but it was boiled and then vinegar was added. So I decided to add my own ingredients. Big mistake. I won’t even tell you what I tried. “Dad, you know how to cook” says the daughter. Hmmm...this made me think. While entering college I had two jobs. One was with a German chef who was hard to understand but I watched and learned. The second was with a chef from France. She and her husband had a small restaurant on Castro street in Mtn. View. The family was Vietnamese so I got to learn both French and Vietnamese food. among which were a banana beignet and chicken maison. and they made this omelette that was out of this world. The real revelation was remembering my mom and aunts cooking from scratch. It was the 60’s so Asian-type vegetables weren’t available at the local market or even the farmsteads all over the valley . My father, like most of the men who settled in the area, had their own gardens, and I developed a green thumb from him, digging rows and working manure into the soil.

“Fresh is best”, I thought. So I started from “scratch” with the traditional Tuscany recipe they've used for centuries, adding a few things here and there to create a flavor profile my daughter would never wrinkle her nose at. She didn’t! She had seconds and that is when Ed’s Pesto was born.

After years of parties, holidays, and family and church potlucks it got to the point where we took jars with us after always hearing the phrase “this is the best pesto I’ve ever tasted! Can I take some home?” Our pastors Rob and Sandi, along with some close church members, offered some sound advise: If you want to continue offering this legacy recipe you need to turn it into a business.” What? I’m too old to be doing anything like that!” and we didn’t have any idea what approach to take. This is the Silicon Valley. We know more about operating systems than sauce distribution, But on a wing and a prayer and some help from some kind church members, we started selling at local farmers market ( which is a story in itself.)

“Ed’s Pesto” is our legacy recipe...one of many. We have a real appreciation for those foods the aunts and grandmas and mothers offered us at family potlucks. As this adventure continues, we will be on the search for those legacy recipes...the ones that tend to get lost in time and no one ever gets to taste again. Share yours with us if you want to. And in the meantime, we hope you enjoy our pesto sauces, share the goodness, and come back for more.

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