Pomegranate Molasses
I’ve been thinking a lot about synergy lately. You know, how an apple is fantastic on its own but then you combine it with blackberries and a crumble topping and all of a sudden its elevated to new heights. Or turmeric, on its own is a fantastic anti-inflammatory and liver repairing herb but then if [...]
Spiced Hawthorn-rose syrup
Two wonderful things happened in the last month, and they both occurred over the same weekend. The first was the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference. I’m sure if you’re up to date with my ramblings on Facebook you got sick of reading about it. A 3-day weekend gathering of Herbalists from all over the country [...]
Santa Rosa Plum and Basil Jam
(…on basil. and India. and opening.) Lots of things are sacred in India. Cows are sacred, milk is sacred, moments are sacred, life is sacred, and basil, most definitely, is considered sacred. The most potent varieties are referred to as ‘holy basil’, and a Hindu household is considered incomplete without a little plant somewhere. I [...]
Elderberry Chutney
(in which I get a bit bossy) Gathering with friends is only fun if its an enhancement of gathering alone. Because alone, gathering is a holy experience. You sink into a rhythm, a quiet calm. Snip, pluck, drop, move, repeat. That rhythm becomes a background humm, that turns into a moving meditation. By the time [...]
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
In an ideal world, there would be a separate court system for left-brainers and right-brainers, so that the left-brainers could show up on the appointed date, at the appointed time (or ten minutes early) with all their paperwork in hand, and us right-brainers could show up when we feel like it, having forgotten most of [...]
Pickled Watermelon Rinds
I like watching people test for good watermelons, because it makes them look crazy. I know this, because I do it, and people look at me like I’m crazy. I learned the knocking technique from an Israeli woman who claimed to be the ‘queen of vegetables’, who would bustle around the grocery store, knocking on [...]
Aioli
It was my lovely brother Alex who pointed out that you cannot find good aioli in America. He pointed this out while filling our grocery cart with aioli, which is sold in little tubs for about a Euro apiece. I wondered how he’d ever go through it all, but it turns out that I underestimated [...]
Yucca syrup
I was out wandering in the hills at sunset the other night. The clouds were rolling in from the Pacific below me, blotting out most of the signs of civilisation. And I climbed- up to the area that I call the dragon’s back, though it has another name that is much more boring. I much [...]
Lemon marmalade
My first experiment with marmalade started and ended 2 years ago. I was really into fermenting things at the time, and decided that, better than regular old marmalade was FERMENTED MARMALADE. Of course all of this was at the prompting of Jam, who loves marmalade (somewhere, under that handsome face and messy hair is an [...]
Prickly Pear Jelly
Prickly pear cactus grows all over the Southwestern US. It’s a big, beautiful plant, and the whole thing is edible, once you remove the thorns. In Mexico it’s as common to eat as eggs, but here it’s a relatively unknown food item, except in Mexican communities. In Mexico it’s called ‘nopales’, and the fruits are [...]
