Equal Parts

The Actual Best Lunch is derived from The Actual Best Dinner, which is the first dinner that Jeff ever made for me. I call it Jeff’s Famous Spicy Pesto Pasta, but it is also known as Giada’s Fusilli with Spicy Pesto. My fiancé (MY FIANCÉ OF THREE WEEKS!!!) swaps the jalapeno for extra garlic and blends it to a smoother texture than you can imagine. The sauce becomes trapped in the corkscrew nooks and crannies of the fusilli, and it is perfect.

Jeff first served me his pasta alongside a butternut squash soup and a genius goat cheese and tomato bruschetta. Both are also favorite dishes to this day. He repeated the meal (minus the soup) at our recent, spontaneous US Open Opening Ceremony Party (planned the night before, attended by me, him, and our friend who played tennis in college), and thankfully there were leftovers.

For the past month we’ve been bringing home six pounds of Michigan tomatoes from our CSA each week. I call it, “the most wonderful time of the year, the happiest season of all.” To make The Actual Best Lunch, I sliced a few dark cherry tomatoes, spread them over the top of the leftover pesto pasta, sprinkled with sea salt, and ate it straight out of the Tupperware container while watching season three Friends reruns on a day off from work.

JEFF'S FAMOUS SPICY PESTO PASTA

In a food processor, combine approximately 1 cup chopped walnuts, 3 cloves garlic, 1 cup grated Asiago cheese, 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1 tsp pepper, 3 ounces spinach, 3 ounces arugula, and 1/4 cup olive oil. Blend until extremely smooth. Taste and add salt as needed; since the salt content of the cheeses can vary, it’s best to salt and taste to your liking at the end. Jeff told me his trick for extreme smoothness is to use the opening at the top of the lid (what is that actually called?!) not just for drizzling olive oil, but also for slowly adding the greens. Mix into 1 lb of cooked fusilli and serve to your loved ones.