Trenette col Pesto

Many years ago when we lived in a small village in Liguria, Iva Spagnoli cooked for us from time to time. Iva, a perpetually good-natured woman, lived by herself; her son worked in a bank nearby. She grew her own vegetables, fruits, and herbs, had a passel of rabbits, and made olive oil from the olives on her tree. She was living evidence that thrifty Ligurians rely on the ingredients they can coax from the rocky hillsides and mountainous landscape of their region, which wraps around the Me