Tulsi (Holy Basil)

Scintillating

“Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle, and in the garden we are never far away from death, the fertilizing, good, creative death.” ~May Sarton

Gourmet Herbed Salts

Salt. It has been around for a long, long time, with evidence of its use dating back as far as 6500 B.C. The British evaporated salt by boiling seawater from salt spri­ngs in small clay pots over open fires during the Iron Age. Salt was used as money by the many ancient cultures, including the...

Summer Peach Preserves

“Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall, if I can’t have the girl I love I won’t have none at all . . . ” Anyone else love Shadygrove? It’s certainly summer here in these shady groves of the Blue Ridges, and the scent of fresh, ripe peaches wafts through our kitchen, mingling with...

Cilantro: Coriander by Another Name

Cilantro is in full bloom, a dazzling sight artfully arranged by hundreds of miniscule flowers dancing together.   It’s creating fruits now, which are known as coriander seed and used in almost all the sub-continental  dishes I grew up eating:  daal, curries, biryani, fish, kababs, none of them are without either powdered coriander seeds, crushed coriander...

Chamomile

I love the scent of chamomile and find myself drawn to whiff deeply from it even before it blooms, just knees and nose to the ground buried in feathery leaves, and in the blink of an eye I feel uplifted and settled.