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FEATURES

p.18 NOSTALGIA

BENEFIT OR TRAP

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KEY TO FEEDING THE WORLD

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TWILIGHT OF THE MOM&POP MOTEL

p.58

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NOSTALGIA BENEFIT OR TRAP Te x t b y K r y s t i n e B a t c h o

In his song “Time Was,” counterculture singer Phil Ochs reminisces about a past “when a man could build a home, have a family of his own. The peaceful years would flow; he could watch his children grow. But it was a long time ago.”

To Ochs, simpler times were better: “troubles were few…a man could have his pride; there was justice on his side… there was truth in every day.”

Ochs recorded “Time Was” in 1962, when he was just 22 years old. He had yet to witness the most tumultuous parts of the 1960s – the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the polarization wrought by the Vietnam War, and the civil rights and feminist movements.

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H

alf a century later – with the rapid, dramatic consequences of social and political upheaval, with technological advances that have radically transformed our daily lives – some might similarly find themselves longing for a time when “troubles were few” and “there was truth in every day.”

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Constantly being plugged into the internet and social media is thought to be associated with higher rates of anxiety and depression.

lost control over their privacy. A recent poll even revealed that a majority of Americans think that America’s culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse since the 1950s.

Online messaging and communication have created misunderstanding and divisions, and many feel as though they’ve

But what effect does this longing have? Is it a useful psychological tool or a perilous trapping?

THEMILLMAGAZINE.COM•EDITION 8 NO. 2•BACKROADS

A BITTERSWEET LONGING In life, change is the default, not the exception; transformation is baked into every aspect of our world, from physical growth to scientific progress. Novelty, meanwhile, is an antidote to boredom, stagnation and satiation.

Nonetheless, people long for stability. Change can threaten wellbeing, especially when it requires a new set of skills to meet new demands. Stress can accompany unexpected or extreme change, since our ability to control situations depends upon a reasonable degree of predictability. (Imagine not knowing if a stone would fall or rise when you let go of it.)

Nostalgia is a bittersweet yearning for the past. It’s sweet because it allows us to momentarily relive good times; it’s bitter because we recognize that those times can never return. Longing for our

own past is referred to as personal nostalgia, and preferring a distant era is termed historical nostalgia.

Although nostalgia is universal, research has shown that a nostalgic yearning for the past is especially likely to occur during periods of transition, like maturing into adulthood or aging into retirement. Dislocation or alienation resulting from military conflict, moving to a new country or technological progress can also elicit nostalgia.

A STABILIZING FORCE In the face of instability, our mind will reach for our positive memories of the past, which tend to be more crystallized than negative or neutral ones. In the past, theorists tended to think of nostalgia as a bad thing – a retreat in the face of uncertainty, stress or unhappiness. In 1985, psychoanalytic theorist

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Roderick Peters described extreme nostalgia as debilitative, something “that persists and profoundly interferes with the individual’s attempts to cope with his present circumstances.”

But contemporary research, including my own, has contradicted this maladaptive view.

A 2015 study showed that nostalgic reminiscence can be a stabilizing force. It can strengthen our sense of personal continuity, reminding us that we possess a store of powerful memories that are deeply intertwined with our identity. The

I

person who listened to his grandpa’s stories as a little boy, played youth baseball and partied with friends in high school is still that same person today.

Research I’ve conducted since 1998 has shown that nostalgic memories tend to focus on our relationships, which can comfort us during stressful or difficult times. Although we’ve become independent and mature (perhaps even a bit jaded), we’re still our parents’ child, our brother’s sibling and our lover’s confidant.

n developing a retrospective survey of childhood experiences, I found that remembering that we experienced unconditional love as children can reassure us in the present

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– especially during trying times. These memories can fuel the courage to confront our fears, take reasonable risks and tackle challenges. Rather than trapping us in the past, nostalgia can liberate us from adversity by promoting personal growth.

My studies have also shown that people with a greater propensity for nostalgia are better able to cope with adversity and are more likely to seek emotional support, advice and practical help from others. They’re also more likely to avoid distractions that prevent them from confronting their troubles and solving problems.

NOSTALGIA’S FINE LINE But for all its benefits, nostalgia can also seduce us into retreating

into a romanticized past. The desire to escape into the imagined, idealized world of a prior era – even one you weren’t alive for – represents a different, independent type of nostalgia called historical nostalgia.

Historical nostalgia is often concurrent with a deep dissatisfaction with the present and a preference for the way things were long ago. Unlike personal nostalgia, someone who experiences

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historical nostalgia might have a more cynical perspective of the world, one colored by pain, trauma, regret or adverse childhood experiences. Nonetheless, from a treatment perspective, reports suggest that personal nostalgia can be used therapeutically to help individuals move beyond trauma in the aftermath of violence, exile or loss. At the same time, someone who has endured trauma, without proper treatment, could become subsumed by a malignant form of nostalgia that leads to a perpetual yearning to return to the past.

U

ltimately, when we focus on our own life experiences – falling back on our store of happy memories – nostalgia is a useful tool. It’s a way to harness the past internally to endure change – and create hope for the future.

aM T M T H E M I L L M AG A Z I N E

Krystine Batcho is a Professor of Psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY and is a licensed psychologist. Her current research on the psychology of nostalgia began with her introduction of the Nostalgia Inventory, a survey that assesses proneness to personal nostalgia. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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GOOD DIRT KEY TO FEEDING THE WORLD Text by David R. Montgomer y

One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the world using fewer agrochemicals.

When I embarked on a six-month trip to visit farms around the world to research my forthcoming book, “Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life,” the innovative farmers I met showed me that regenerative farming

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practices can restore the world’s agricultural soils. In both the developed and developing worlds, these farmers rapidly rebuilt the fertility of their degraded soil, which then allowed them to maintain high yields using far less fertilizer and fewer pesticides.

Their experiences, and the results that I saw on their farms in North and South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ghana and Costa

A

Rica, offer compelling evidence that the key to sustaining highly productive agriculture lies in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil.

This journey also led me to question three pillars of conventional wisdom about today’s industrialized agrochemical agriculture: that it feeds the world, is a more efficient way to produce food and will be necessary to feed the future.

MYTH 1: LARGE-SCALE AGRICULTURE FEEDS THE WORLD TODAY

ccording to a recent U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, family farms produce over three-quarters of the world’s food. The FAO also estimates

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that almost three-quarters of all farms worldwide are smaller than one hectare – about 2.5 acres, or the size of a typical city block.

Only about 1 percent of Americans are farmers today. Yet most

almost 90 percent of U.S. agricultural exports went to developed

of the world’s farmers work the land to feed themselves and their

countries with few hungry people.

families. So while conventional industrialized agriculture feeds the developed world, most of the world’s farmers work small

Of course the world needs commercial agriculture, unless we all

family farms.

want to live on and work our own farms. But are large industrial farms really the best, let alone the only, way forward? This

A 2016 Environmental Working Group report found that

question leads us to a second myth.

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M

MYTH 2: LARGE FARMS ARE MORE EFFICIENT

any high-volume industrial processes exhibit efficiencies at large scale that decrease inputs per unit of production.

The more widgets you make, the more efficiently you can make each one. But agriculture is different.

A 1989 National Research Council study concluded that “well-managed alternative farming systems nearly always use less synthetic chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics per unit of production than conventional farms.” And while mechanization can provide cost and labor efficiencies on large farms, bigger farms do not necessarily produce more food.

According to a 1992 agricultural census report, small, diversified

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farms produce more than twice as much food per acre than large farms do. Even the World Bank endorses small farms as the way to increase agricultural output in developing nations where food security remains a pressing issue. While large farms excel at producing a lot of a particular crop – like corn or wheat – small diversified farms produce more food and more kinds of food per hectare overall.

W

MYTH 3: CONVENTIONAL FARMING IS NECESSARY TO FEED THE WORLD

e’ve all heard proponents of conventional agriculture claim that organic farming is a recipe for global starvation because it produces lower yields.

The most extensive yield comparison to date, a 2015 metaanalysis of 115 studies, found that organic production averaged almost 20 percent less than conventionally grown crops, a finding similar to those of prior studies. But the study went a step further, comparing crop yields on conventional farms to those on organic farms where cover crops were planted and crops were rotated to build soil health. These techniques shrank the yield gap to below 10 percent. The authors concluded that the actual gap may be much smaller, as they found “evidence

of bias in the meta-dataset toward studies reporting higher conventional yields.” In other words, the basis for claims that organic agriculture can’t feed the world depend as much on specific farming methods as on the type of farm.

Consider too that about a quarter of all food produced worldwide is never eaten. Each year the United States alone throws out 133 billion pounds of food, more than enough to feed the nearly 50 million Americans who regularly face hunger. So even taken

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at face value, the oft-cited yield gap between conventional and organic farming is smaller than the amount of food we routinely throw away.

BUILDING HEALTHY SOIL Conventional farming practices that degrade soil health undermine humanity’s ability to continue feeding everyone over the long run. Regenerative practices like those used on the farms and ranches I visited show that we can readily improve soil fertility on both large farms in the U.S. and on small subsistence farms in the tropics.

I no longer see debates about the future of agriculture as simply conventional versus organic. In my view, we’ve oversimplified the complexity of the land and underutilized the ingenuity of farmers. I now see adopting farming practices that build soil

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health as the key to a stable and resilient agriculture. And the farmers I visited had cracked this code, adapting no-till methods, cover cropping and complex rotations to their particular soil, environmental and socioeconomic conditions.

Whether they were organic or still used some fertilizers and pesticides, the farms I visited that adopted this transformational suite of practices all reported harvests that consistently matched or exceeded those from neighboring conventional farms after a short transition period. Another message was as simple as it was clear: Farmers who restored their soil used fewer inputs to produce higher yields, which translated into higher profits.

No matter how one looks at it, we can be certain that agriculture will soon face another revolution. For agriculture today runs on abundant, cheap oil for fuel and to make fertilizer – and our

supply of cheap oil will not last forever. There are already enough people on the planet that we have less than a year’s supply of food for the global population on hand at any one time. This simple fact has critical implications for society.

So how do we speed the adoption of a more resilient agriculture?

Creating demonstration farms would help, as would carrying out system-scale research to evaluate what works best to adapt specific practices to general principles in different settings.

We also need to reframe our agricultural policies and subsidies.

It makes no sense to continue incentivizing conventional practices that degrade soil fertility. We must begin supporting and rewarding farmers who adopt regenerative practices.

Once we see through myths of modern agriculture, practices

that build soil health become the lens through which to assess strategies for feeding us all over the long haul. Why am I so confident that regenerative farming practices can prove both productive and economical? The farmers I met showed me they already are.

aM T M T H E M I L L M AG A Z I N E

David R. Montgomery is a Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington.

He is a MacArthur Fellow who studies the evolution of topography and the influence of geomorphological processes on ecological systems and human societies. He received his B.S. in geology at Stanford University and his Ph.D. in geomorphology from UC Berkeley. His published research includes studies of the evolution and near-extirpation of salmon, fluvial and hillslope processes in mountain drainage basins, the evolution of mountain ranges (Cascades, Andes, and Himalaya). He is the author of award-winning popular-science books (King of Fish, Dirt, and The Rocks Don't Lie) and co-authored The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health with his wife, biologist Anne Biklé. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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ROADSIDE LODGING TWILIGHT OF THE MOM&POP MOTEL Te x t b y A n d r e w Wo o d

In 1939, when John Steinbeck imagined Highway 66 as “the road of flight,” he evoked the crushing realities of Depression-era migrants who’d been pushed off their land by failing crops, relentless dust and heartless banks.

Struggling to find some sense of home on the road, these environmental and economic refugees searched for hope against a backdrop of unfathomable loss. On the road to California, they’d rest and recuperate in army surplus tents, hastily constructed Department of Transportation camps and Sears Roebuck chicken-coop cabins.

They could hardly imagine the surreal indulgences of the tourist road that would begin to emerge after World War II: renting a room built to resemble a country cottage and adorned with plastic flowers; snapping photos of a neon cactus glowing through half-drawn window shades; sleeping in a concrete tepee appropriated from Native American culture.

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They could, in short, never foresee the rise of the roadside motel.

But after its heyday in the mid-20th century, the traditional mom and pop motel – once ubiquitous along American highways and byways – has largely slipped from the public imagination.

Today’s road-tripper generally prefers lodging that boasts a professional website, guarantees a fast internet connection and promises easy-on-easy-off interstate access, leaving the older motels built along two-lane roads and numbered highways to go to seed.

As Mark Okrant writes in “No Vacancy: The Rise, Demise and Reprise of America’s Motels,” approximately 16,000 motels were operating in 2012, a sharp drop from a peak of 61,000 in 1964. In

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subsequent years, that number has surely declined further. Even so, efforts to preserve mom and pop motor lodges – particularly along Route 66, “the highway that’s the best” – indicate a desire among many historians and motorists to reclaim something of the motel spirit not yet entirely lost.

BEFORE THE MOTEL…THE FARMER’S FIELD? To understand America is to travel its highways. In the first three decades of the 20th century, America cemented its love affair with the automobile. For the first time, most people – no matter their struggle or station in life – could hop in their cars, hit the road and escape from the places and circumstances that bound them.

Of course, there were few of the amenities available to today’s

interstate traveler. West of the Mississippi, camping was the most common alternative to expensive hotels. For motorists who didn’t wish to traipse across stuffy lobbies in road-worn clothing, the convenience and anonymity of a field or lake shore was an attractive option.

differed from most contemporary motels, which are often found near highways, away from the city center. However, each tourist home was as unique as their owners. In this, they contributed to a central tradition of the American motel: mom and pop ownership.

Back east, tourist homes provided another alternative to hotels.

If you look around in dusty attics or antique shops, you can still find cardboard signs that advertise “Rooms for Tourists.”

For example, the Tarry-A-While tourist home in Ocean City, Maryland, advertised, “Rooms, Running Water, Bathing From Rooms. Apartments, Modern Conveniences. Special rates April, May, June and after Labor Day.”

FILL UP YOUR TANK AND GRAB A BITE TO EAT As the Depression wore on, it became profitable to offer more amenities than those available at campsites. Farmers or businessmen would contract with an oil company, put up a gas pump and throw up a few shacks. Some were prefabricated; others were handmade – rickety, but original.

Because tourist homes were frequently located in town, they

In the book “The Motel in America,” the authors illustrate the typical visit to a “cabin camp”:

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“A

t the U-Smile Cabin Camp…arriving guests signed the registry and then paid their money. A cabin without a mattress rented for one dollar; a mattress for two people cost an extra twenty-five cents, and blankets, sheets, and pillows another fifty cents. The manager rode the running boards to show guests to their cabins. Each guest was given a bucket of water from an outside hydrant, along with a scuttle of firewood in the winter.”

By the 1930s and ‘40’s, cottage courts (also known as tourist courts) emerged as a classier alternative to dingy cabin camps.

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Each cottage was standardized along a theme, like “rustic or "ranch,” and most were built around a public lawn. As the English Village East in New Hampshire’s White Mountains advertised: “Modern and homelike, these bungalows accommodate thousands of tourists who visit this beauty spot in Franconia Notch.” Unlike downtown hotels, courts were designed to be automobile-friendly. You could park next to your individual

room or under a carport. Along with filling stations, restaurants and cafes began to appear at these roadside havens.

The Sanders Court & Cafe in Corbin, Kentucky, advertised “complete accommodations with tile baths, (abundance of hot water), carpeted floors, 'Perfect Sleeper’ beds, air conditioned, steam heated, radio in every room, open all year, serving excellent food.” And yes, that food included the fried chicken developed by Harland Sanders, the Kentucky colonel of KFC fame.

THE RISE OF THE MOTEL During the 1930s and ‘40’s, individual cabin camp and cottage court owners, known as “courtiers,” dominated the roadside haven trade (with the exception of Lee Torrance and his fledgling

Alamo Courts chain). For a time, courtiers lived one version of the American Dream: home and business combined under the same roof. Then, during World War II, almost everything road trip-related was rationed, with tires, gasoline and leisure time at a premium. But many troops traveling across the country to be deployed overseas saw parts of America that they would later want to revisit upon their return.

After the war, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, frustrated by the difficulty of moving tanks across the country, promoted a plan that mimicked the German autobahn: the Federal Interstate Highway System. But the first of these four-lane highways would take over a decade to build. Until then, families took to whatever highways were available – cruising over rolling roads that followed the curves and undulations of the countryside.

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Whenever it suited them, they could easily pull off to visit small towns and landmarks. At night, they found motor courts – no longer isolated cottages, but fully integrated buildings under a single roof – lit by neon and designed with flair. They would soon be referred to as “motels,” a name coined by the owner of the Milestone Mo-Tel (an abbreviation of “motor hotel”) in San Luis Obispo, California.

While motel rooms were plain and functional, the facades took advantage of regional styles (and, occasionally, stereotypes).

Owners employed stucco, adobe, stone, brick – whatever was handy – to attract guests.

With families swarming to and from the rest stops that multiplied along the highways of postwar America, many of the

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owners settled in for a life’s work.

The good times wouldn’t last. Limited-access interstates, built to bypass congested downtowns, began to snake across the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. Before long, small-time motor courts were rendered obsolete by chains like Holiday Inn that blurred the distinction between motels and hotels. Single-story structures gave way to double- and triple-deckers. The thrill of discovering the unique look and feel of a roadside motel was replaced by assurances of sameness by hosts from coast to coast.

Today, with most travelers using the Interstate Highway System, few people go out of their way to find roadside motels. Fewer still remember the traditions of autocamps and tourist courts.

However, a growing number of preservation societies and

intrepid cultural explorers have begun to hit the exits and travel the original highways again – exploring remnants of Route 66, Highway 40, and U.S. 1 – searching for that one singular experience just around the bend.

NO PLACE TO ESCAPE You could argue that the decline of mom and pop motels signifies something else lost in contemporary American life: the loss of friction, of distance, of idiosyncrasy. In my book “City Ubiquitous: Place, Communication, and the Rise of Omnitopia,” I write of a nation defined less by travel than by the illusion that one may gather up all the world – all the same and dependable parts of it, at least – and navigate its safe interiors without fear of surprise. There is pleasure – and some degree of satisfaction – in this fantasy. But there is something missing too.

I don’t necessarily want to call it “authenticity.” But we might imagine motor lodges – those of the past and those that remain today – as representative of a pleasant and peculiar fantasy of freedom: a way to escape the global continuum of constant flow and effortless connection. They’re a departure from the script of everyday life, a place where travelers can still invent a new persona, a new past, a new destination.

aM T M T H E M I L L M AG A Z I N E

Andrew Wood is a Professor of Communication Studies at San José State University. Dr. Wood has authored or co-authored books on internet communication, reality television, roadside Americana, and the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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GARDEN PARTY BRING ON THE FOOD Te x t b y C a n d a c e M a t t i n g l y

T

here’s no better way to celebrate the weekend than with friends, family, and a garden party.

Whether you’re hosting or an invited guest, these dishes are simple to serve and can withstand the challenges of an outdoor setting while looking and tasting fabulous.

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SWEET CORN CAKES Ingredients: 1 cup cornmeal 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 ⅓ cups sugar 2 tablespoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt ⅔ cup vegetable oil ⅓ cup melted butter 2 tablespoons honey 4 eggs, beaten 2 ½ cups whole milk

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease individual mini cake

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tins. Stir together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Pour in the vegetable oil, melted butter, honey, beaten eggs, and milk, and stir just to moisten. Pour the batter into the mini cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, until the top of the cornbread starts to brown and show cracks. Set aside and allow to cool.

SOUR CREAM ICING Ingredients: ¼ cup butter 2 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons sour cream 1 tablespoon sweet cream 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions: Cream butter and sugar together. Add remaining ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour over corn cakes and top with fresh blueberries.

WAFFLE CAKE WITH MASCARPONE WHIPPED CREAM AND BLACK CHERRIES Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon fine salt 1 ½ cups milk 4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, plus more for brushing waffle iron 4 tablespoons vegetable shortening, melted

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2 large eggs Black Cherries, pitted For the Mascarpone Whipped Cream: 8 ounces Mascarpone cheese, at room temperature ¼ cup +1 tablespoon (divided) confectioners’ sugar ¾ cup heavy cream, at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Directions Preheat a waffle iron to medium-high. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the milk, butter, shortening and eggs in another bowl. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and gently stir until just incorporated.

Lightly brush the top and bottom of the waffle iron with butter. Fill the waffle iron about three-quarters of the way full. Close the lid gently and cook until the waffles are golden brown and crisp, 6 to 7 minutes.

To make the Mascarpone Whipped Cream: Place mascarpone cheese in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment,

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and whip it for 1 minute. Slowly add heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl and whip the mixture until it turns into light and fluffy. Important Note: everything must be at room temperature to prevent curdling. To assemble, place a layer of waffles onto a cake plate and spread ¼ cup of the mascarpone whipped cream onto it then add cherries. Place the second layer one on top of the first one, and again, spread ¼ cup mascarpone whipped cream and cherries. Repeat. Top it off with more cherries.

Sprinkle it with 1 tablespoon (or more) of confectioners’ sugar.

MINI CHEESE BALLS

Ingredients: 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 1-ounce packet dry ranch seasoning mix (see below) 2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese 3 green onions, thinly sliced 8 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and crumbled 1 cup finely chopped pecans

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VEGAN CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE

Ingredients: 1 large Kabocha Squash, cooked ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder ½ cup pure maple syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon fine ground coffee 1 pinch of sea salt 2 frozen pie shells, baked 2 tubs frozen coconut whipped topping, thawed Directions: Spoon the cooked squash out of the skin into a food processor. Blend on high until the squash is a smooth consistency. Add the cocoa, maple syrup, vanilla, coffee grounds, and salt. Blend again until well combined and smooth. Fill pie shells and refrigerate. Top with coconut whipped topping when ready to serve.

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Directions: In a large bowl with an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, Worcestershire sauce and ranch seasoning mix until thoroughly mixed. Add in cheddar cheese, green onions and bacon and mix until combined. Cover and place mixture into the refrigerator for about one hour. Use a small scoop to portion the cream cheese mixture. Roll into small balls and then roll into the chopped pecans. Cover mini cheese balls and refrigerate until ready to serve. Arrange on tray with pears, grapes, olives, and crackers.

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon pepper

CORN TOMATO SALAD

Ingredients: 10 ounces rotini 3 tablespoons olive oil ½ cup onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped 1 ½ teaspoons balsamic vinegar Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for grating

Ingredients: 2 cups cooked corn, fresh or frozen 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved ½ cup finely diced red onion ½ cup finely diced green pepper ¼ cup chopped cilantro

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Directions: Combine ingredients in a large bowl and gently toss to mix.

Chill salad for an hour or two to let the flavors blend.

SPINACH BASIL PESTO ROTINI

For the pesto: 1 cup basil leaves, loosely packed 1 ½ cups baby spinach leaves, loosely packed 2 tablespoons pine nuts 1 ½ cloves garlic, peeled and quartered ½ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated ½ teaspoon sea salt Freshly ground black pepper ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil Directions: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta. Prepare the pesto by adding the basil, spinach, pine nuts, garlic, Parmesan cheese, salt and a few grinds of black pepper in a food processor.

Pulse until the basil and garlic are finely chopped. With the machine running, drizzle in ¼ cup of the olive oil and process until the mixture is a smooth purée. If you feel the mixture is too thick to coat the pasta, add a little more olive oil. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add

the onion and sauté until soft and translucent, 3 to 4 minutes.

Stir in the garlic and continue cooking until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Add the balsamic vinegar, combine well. Season to taste with salt and pepper, remove from the heat and set aside.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions, drain and return it to the pot. Add the pesto and toss until thoroughly combined. Add the garlic and onion mixture and toss gently.

Top with grated cheese.

aM T M T H E M I L L M AG A Z I N E

Candace Mattingly studied English literature and interpersonal communications at UNC. She lives with her husband, twin toddlers, and their dog in North Carolina.

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