Instructions: Remove any fibrous ribs from basil leaves. Remove spinach rib. Wipe herbs clean with a dry tea towel. If herbs and spinach are not organic, wipe them with a barely dampened towel. Place sea salt in a large mortar. Add a few leaves, torn into fragments, and 1 clove of the garlic. Start grinding with the pestle, using a circular motion, until everything is reduced to a fine texture. Add a few leaves, and grind and gently pound until leaves and garlic are reduced. Continue in this way, adding the remaining garlic clove at roughly the midpoint, until all leaves are ground to a fine textured pesto.

As you work, keep scraping the pesto down into the bottom of the bowl to form a mound. With the pestle, gradually stir in the cheeses.

You will have a very dense mixture. Scrape pesto off the pestle and down from the sides of the bowl into the bottom of the mortar. Pour olive oil into a small pitcher or measuring cup. Add olive oil in a fine stream, stirring it in with the pestle in a circular motion. Add more oil only as the stream of oil becomes fully incorporated into the pesto. One-half cup oil makes a very "loose" pesto. You may want to use less oil for a thicker pesto. Taste and add salt as needed. Put a plate over the mortar to seal off air. Place mortar in the center of the dining table. Meanwhile, cook spaghetti in abundant salted boiling water until al dente. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons pasta water to the pesto, whisking it in with a fork. Use tongs to lift pasta, dripping wet, into individual pasta bowls. Quickly spoon a little pesto over each bowl and let each person immediately mix it into their pasta (if any time elapses the pasta will start to stick together).

Place a spoon in the mortar so diners can help themselves to more pesto according to taste. Serve with grated cheese at the table.

Serves 4 to 6.

Notes: Spinach, parsley and marjoram: if you dont have all three, include at least one and increase the amount.

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