Free Chives

Nobody likes carrots for Christmas. Nonetheless we have them in the fridge anyway. Often one or two bags of peeled baby carrots. Given all the other holiday treats, raw carrots take last place. Yes, we had good intentions, but still have carrots nobody is eating. What to do?

Make carrot soup, of course. Chop em up, cook 'em down, add spices and cream, and puree.

But a bowlful isn't quite appetizing enough because it's carrots after all, so maybe a dollop of plain yogurt goes on top. Not inspired to eat it yet.

Then I remember, during gray winter days, the one surefire greenery in the woods (often in the border of the woods): chives. You'd never see them in a Wisconsin winter, but they grow freely in beautiful green clumps in Missouri. Scissor the tops as if giving a haircut, and more will grow. Free chives, an endless supply! Maybe there are some near you!

Cut them up, sprinkle them over the soup. Now you have carrot soup fit for the holidays.

Goldenseal or Mayapple?

She was teaching me although I had taught myself it was a Mayapple: "Goldenseal," she said, pointing to a plant that looked like a Mayapple. Since then I've always doubted myself. Goldenseal (Hydrastus canandensis) or Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)?

Decided today to settle it: This is the Divine Woods paved in jungly little ankle-high Mayapples, not Goldenseal. Both look like green umbrellas, are perennial and grow in colonies, but Goldenseal, a relative of the buttercup, has a bloom in the top center that becomes a reddish fruit resembling a raspberry; Mayapples have one white flower that becomes a single drooping ovoid yellow fruit beneath its flirty lingerie of leaves. Animals eat the Mayapple fruit; people get poisoned if they eat more than a little. The rest of the plant is otherwise intensely poisonous, especially the root.

Goldenseal is an endangered wild plant because folks rip it up from the earth to make a powder they say will let you ace your drug test. That is untrue. It too can be toxic. The Indians used it as a medicine but they knew what they were doing.

Both Mayapple and Goldenseal all pop up from one single underground stem. It might take years to establish Mayapple colonies as extensive as these. Colonies indicate that fertile earth lies beneath. Now I can relax, feeling sure of myself.

The Lavender Farm

Lived here 11 years before visiting the famed Lavender Farm in Eureka not five miles away. There they grow lavender, give spring teas with lavender tea and lavender scones, and strawberries with lavender whipped cream; and the gift shop sells essential oil, tinctures, spray, facial serums, soap -- and plants. Bought me a culinary lavender plant, cultivar "Provence," so I will always have a supply for my own lavender scones. Yes, I make 'em. See recipe here.

First went to the Lavender Farm in May for a spring tea with my "Laughter Yoga" group pictured here: Elaine, Mary, Ria, Kathy, Jodi, all of us dining in a former stable fixed up all nice and we got reservations and food and then a talk from the farm's owner, who said lavender is proven antifungal, antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-aging, anti-anxiety, and all-around good for you, whether absorbed through skin or eaten. Returned there on this electrifyingly gorgeous late June day to see the picnic umbrellas and lavender in bloom and some girls (see photo) out picking it, and also to buy the highly concentrated lavender essential oil to blend with the organic coconut oil used as my skin lotion, and the lavender spray that can be used as cologne or bug repellent. Everybody knows, right, that Lavender Skin-So-Soft bath oil keeps bugs away. Lavender is why. It's beautiful and it tastes good. Lavender is one of those miracle herbs.

Most Loved Herb on Earth...

....Basil. I'll throw basil leaves in my bed and sleep with them. This was the week, it always is, to clip the branches off the stems, to cut from their branches the heavenly-scented basil leaves that you see here, and wash them and dry them and then to pulverize the dickens out of 'em, using 1 cup packed basil leaves with 1/4 cup olive oil and salt. It's not quite "pesto"; that'd have garlic and nuts in it. Garlic flavor doesn't freeze well. So what I make at harvest time is basil paste.A huge green mess in the kitchen (pesto mess-toe) ensues. For a minute I dreaded doing the basil-paste thing but it takes an hour and lasts all year, and can't think of too many other things that are so predictably satisfying. And then I told myself, "You're complaining about fresh basil? Golly, don't you have it rough!"

Three big happy plants gave me the harvest you see here. After making the paste I scoop ice-cube-sized portions onto a tray, put tray in freezer, and when the portions are frozen, wrap and package basil cubes for winter. Can't put the cubes in the bed, but I can open the bag and sniff 'em when I need a basil fix.