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...

Bare Necessities: Tincturing

It's the heat of what's been a scorching day, the kind where one steps outside and within a few steps sweat begins to bead up around the hairline and next thing you know it's in your eyebrows, and you're glad to be wearing a skirt to wipe your face with. I'm headed to a slope...

Roots Reishi & Rose Syrup

Reishi has been dancing up and down the Eastern Hemlocks, adorning their bark, in these sylvan woods all spring right into summer. A dryad called me out one day, she knew they'd matured, and led me through the wilds. A triad of trees here with nymphs hiding in the trunk, a mossy bridge over bubbling...

Shrub

Peaches are coming in, juicy and scrumptious, so I make shrub with the skins and scraps and even some pieces plus herbs. What is a 'shrub' you ask?  A vinegar sipping beverage with fruits, sweetener, and herbs/spices dating back to the Babylonians, who mixed date vinegar with their water to make it safe to drink....

What The Rose Did . . .

What the Rose did to the Cypress, A Persian Tale from The Brown Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang, [1904] Once upon a time a great king of the East, named Saman-lalposh, had three brave and clever sons—Tahmasp, Qamas, and Almas-ruh-baksh. One day, when the king was sitting in his hall of audience, his eldest son,...