Dear friends, family, colleagues, casual acquaintances, and indifferent web surfers,

You may have thought that I had stopped cooking delicious deserts to pursue other, more social pastimes. Maybe I threw a wild party, watched a football game, or even went clubbing. Not so. I’ve been quietly cooking and baking away during my few waking hours away from work, but simply haven’t found the time to share my experiments.

I’m of the firm belief that tarts are among the most rewarding of desserts to bake, because it always looks like you’ve put way more effort into them than you actually have.

Okay, I’m no crybaby, but this is the second time that a bicycle ride through Washington, DC has left me in tears. It was nothing, really. A car sped past me through a light (even though he was in a right turn lane) and nearly edged me into oncoming traffic in his hurry to squeeze into my lane.

Maybe that sounds like a big deal to those of you who live in other parts of the country, but for those of us who cycle in DC, it is–sadly–an everyday occurrence. I guess the part that really got to me was when I glanced over at the driver. He was glaring at me, as if I had violated his god-given right to change lanes at will. He wasn’t thinking about my safety–or his, for that matter–and he certainly wasn’t thinking about traffic laws. Not prepared to get into a fight with several tons of metal, I slowed down. He crossed into my lane and sped away without even looking back.

I’ll admit, I sometimes have odd cravings. Raw carrots, candy hearts, frozen peas… the list goes on. But earlier this week, after consuming some mediocre lentil soup at a mediocre falafel joint in my neighborhood, all I could think about was lentils. In a lentil-induced haze, I ran to my local supermarket and bought a handful of ingredients: carrots, celery, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and–you guessed it–lentils. After two hours of chopping, sautéeing, ransacking my spice cabinet, sprinkling, simmering, and stirring, something new and delicious was born.

Let’s imagine that you, dear reader, are filled with admiration for my cooking projects and immediately run to the kitchen to try out each of these recipes over and over. If this is the case, then you have a veritable swimming pool of pesto sitting around, waiting to be used. And you’re probably sick of eating it with pasta. Well, here’s some great news! You can have fresh, homemade pesto pizza! Yum yum! And it’s so easy!

I have a confession to make. I’m a pesto snob. I spent years sampling store-bought varieties, disappointed with everything in a jar, and nearly all of the fresher, refrigerated ones. While studying abroad in Paris, I lived on yogurt, baguettes, and–yes–pesto. Watching a friend make pesto out of a packet nearly killed me.

You know that saying? About what to do if you want something done well? And don’t have a celebrated Italian chef locked away in your kitchen cupboard? Clearly, the answer was to find a good pesto recipe and obsessively refine it over the course of several months.