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We went north.
After an especially stressful six weeks, during which Jam and I hardly saw each other, we packed up the car and drove north east, into the Sierras, to our favourite little camping spot. As we drove higher, the air got cooler and lighter. Sometimes you don’t notice that you live somewhere smoggy until you take [...]
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A few more things
(in which I dish out a recipe for the best rice in the world, talk about teaching, and hawk my herb blend) As I write this, a big pot of elderflower champagne is fermenting away in the corner. Its bubbling noises permeate the quiet of my living room. Its a familiar kind of thing, comfortable, [...]
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A biscuit and a cup of tea
And sometimes life is both normal and exciting: 1. From the couch in my living room where I write, looking out the window, the flower stalks of my big white sage plant can be seen shooting up towards the sky, waving in the wind. Every morning I run outside to see how many new flowers [...]
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Wildcrafted medicine class in Los Angeles!
Announcing: Wildcrafted Medicine Class in Los Angeles I’m pleased to announce that my friend Emily and I are going to be teaching a series of wildcrafted medicine classes in Los Angeles. First up: elderflowers! Are you interested in learning how to wildcraft your own herbal medicine? Interested in building your own home apothecary and knowing [...]
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Elderflowers and blackberries.
(in which I gather a lot of things, get a few bug bites, and try to stay connected to the earth) There’s one hand and it contains relaxation, and everything I’ve ever mentioned about moving through space at one’s own pace. And then there’s the other hand which holds a to-do list a mile long, [...]
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Hurtling through space
(in which I dole out an anatomy lesson, provide pictures of my recent adventures, and reward you with a recipe for the best cookie in the entire world) I’ve been thinking about time lately. Of course there’s city time, or world-clock time, or employer time. I think they’re one and the same. The kind of [...]
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The elegance of water.
Water both scares and excites me. Unlike my husband who can’t stay away from the stuff, I have a healthy respect for it due to a. being a not-so-strong swimmer and b. two almost drowning incidents on the sea shore. I grew up on the water, some of my earliest memories are of the smell [...]
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Buckwheat
(in which I once again get a little philosophical, think about the nature of things, and eat some [more] biscuits) My friend Carly said something the other night that kind of blew my mind: she no longer gives people exact arrival times, but instead gives a half hour window. She’s been getting crap about being [...]
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Exciting news (a giveaway post!)
Well it finally happened. Cauldrons and Crockpots reached over 2000 fans on Facebook, and as I’ve promised, in thanks to all you lovely people who like, comment, read and send me the loveliest emails, its time for a giveaway. As you all know, I have a shop where I sell my hand-crafted herbal goodies. Different [...]
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An especially rooted kind of thing
(in which I get woo-woo, and eat a lot of potatoes) As I type this, the afternoon winter sunlight is streaming in through the front windows. Cat is, of course, asleep in a patch of it. I sit with one hand clasped around a mug of chai-spiced and chaga-infused lapsang souchang tea, its spicy warmth [...]
summer
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 [...]
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Essentially…
(a recipe for braised fennel yum and exploration of what it is we all do) Often, while sitting at my little market stall, I am approached by people who want to know what a herb DOES. People are always interested in the function of person, plant or object alike, because we want to know how [...]
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Elderflower cordial
(dancing on the edges of things) I remember the day I first fell in love with the elderflower: it was a hot Glaswegian summer day. I was sitting on my favourite grassy knoll, in the shade of a big craggy old hawthorn bush, with a bounty. All of my adventures involved a bounty of some [...]
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empty jars
Now that I’m done with school for a few weeks, I can actually get out and walk and enjoy the late spring weeds that grow around here. Yesterday I went to my favourite little trail in Topanga Canyon. It’s such a diverse little area. In fact this whole area is. The wild cherries are getting [...]
Chicken Livers Redux
Visits to my grandparents’ house for dinner were always a double edged sword: on one side, I’d get to see them, get lots of love, hang out, eat the chocolates that are for guests only (did your grandparents have the chocolate stash too?). On the other, I’d have to, inevitably, eat chopped liver. My grandparents [...]
Cheat Day Strawberry Clafoutis!
When Jamie and I first started dating, we both gained about 15 lbs. To say that our dating life revolved around food would be a bit of an exaggeration, but, very early on we decided that if the other had, for some weird reason, not enjoyed food, it would just never have worked out. Have [...]
Sage on the brain
Seriously, I can’t stop thinking about it. Between sage ice cream, sage and vanilla cupcakes, sage and peach leaf tea, sage smudging, I’m about ready to go outside and roll around until I’m covered in it. Pictured: Salvia apiana (white sage) and salvia mellifera (black sage). the black sage is fully in bloom. The white [...]
Gluten free chocolate cupcakes
I think I can safely say that the cupcake craze has swept the entire globe. Except perhaps some very rural areas in Georgia and central Afghanistan, and maybe a few tribes out in the Congo. Other than that, everybody loves cupcakes. Well, almost everybody loves cupcakes. Everybody except those fashionable people who jumped on the [...]
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