In my long herbal life thus far the question I have been asked most about herbs exposes a deep fresh herb hesitation: “How do I use them all up?” My answer has always sounded as smart-assy as I am, despite the sincerity. “You just do. You just use them up.” Transcend the conservatism. Learn at least a little about the flavor and potencies of the herbs you like, play and take risks. That’s how we grow as cooks and eaters. I have always had my work cut out for me in trying to encourage fresh herb usage in American kitchens. My herbal salts, which are all packed full of fresh herbs, are just one way to increase excitement about herbs.
Summer
August 30, 2022
I have to go back pretty far to recall how my herbal salts first materialized. While surely some form of fresh herbal salt has existed in my culinary repertoire for a long time, I know the first shelf-stable, oven-dried version started in Brooklyn while running Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center: one of the few Brooklyn-based businesses I started in my early 30’s. My herbal salts transformed and matured as I traveled the globe. I became a better, more skillful cook and ingredient finder as I traveled to each new place, my herbal salts reflected this growth and found more creative fuel for my artistry, more passion and more personal happiness in creating. The herb salts just kind of metamorphized, despite the irony to of me being a salt-hesitant cook, into what they are today, as I fed my mind, passion and artistry and I hardly even noticed it was happening. It’s been an incredible journey refining this herbal salt thing inside me, cultivating joy while doing it, all from the unlikely position of southern Missouri. But it is indeed here, in my Blue Eye, MO, kitchen that these herbal salts have culminated.
August 30, 2022
Something deep inside me lights up in the presence of fresh herbs. I am enraptured by them, as well as those who grow and use them. I hope I can inspire you to use more of them. Fresh herbs have been a symbol of my own artistry and creative spirit since I started growing them in my garden in Eugene, Oregon, in my early 20’s. Not only are they a staple in my cooking, but they have sprung up in every aspect of my life ever since. My Herbal Roots is the creative manifestation of everything herbal I have experienced along the way, and a projection of all to come. It’s a place for me to share my herbal passion indiscriminately, allowing me to document the herbal moments that light my path, providing a home to pause in celebration and appreciation. I have been conscious of my own innate passionate streak from an early age. Like many others, I remember coloring outside the lines as a child. What set me apart was the self-confidence I had that couldn’t be swayed by anyone telling me it was wrong. My inner strength carried me forward from the get-go, fearlessly driving me to where and who I am today. The Summer 2022 – The Fruit Series is a manifestation of my life in Missouri. I hope you enjoy.
July 28, 2022
Where do I belong when I am “different”? How do I belong in both the bigger world and in the smaller place I reside simultaneously? These questions have followed me around my whole life and feel fresh again as I carve out a real home for my fruity & weird self here in Missouri. The questions, the timing, maybe my age, and certainly the remote and wildly different-for-me locale I’m afoot in has been challenging everything I know about myself. But it is exactly here that my culinary and herbal creativity has produced some of my finest, most precise and innovative work yet. My creative visions are soaring despite the trouble I have finding my grounding here. My herbal concoctions – the herbal salts, most definitely – have always been a collision of everything I see and feel, flavors, people and cultures in ingredient form. Could Missouri be a place where I thrive in the ways I need to most? Is Missouri stirring my creative juices? Maybe, just maybe here is where I need to be: to learn more, to do more and grow more.
July 28, 2022
It would be difficult for me to write a fluff piece on non-alcoholic drinks. That’s not simply because a fluff piece is generally rare for me (unless I’ve been paid good money to do so, which is also rare) but because I consider the topic of non-alcoholic drinks to be an incredibly important one these days, a topic with many layers and complexities. Mostly I want to encourage honest discourse on the darker side of alcohol, the side that far too many of us are well acquainted with in one way or another. Today there is a myriad of non-alcoholic drinkers out there that are often forgotten about: under-agers, sober people, the health-conscious and those with a general consensus that too much alcohol isn't ideal for the human body, spirit and mind. Kids and adults alike should all have easy access to well crafted, non-alcoholic great tasting drinks regardless of whether we are at a restaurant, a park, the beach or at home.
July 25, 2021
I think about this topic a lot: courage and creativity. In terms of courage, I wonder why some people have it, the ability to be courageous, while others seem to have none. I wonder if it’s like a muscle you have to build, strengthen and exercise it or if it’s more like eye color; we’re given what we are given through genes. Courage has been something I have had since I was young, for as long as I can remember. I have a lot of fear, the same as everyone else, but for whatever reason I am courageous regardless of my fears. And trust me, my fears are probably way bigger than yours. I’m afraid of everything and everybody.
July 7, 2021
I tend to be an extremist when it comes to emotions. This is why I’ve had to really practice balance. Part of that practice started many years ago, when I had to slow down my crazy capacity for taking on more and more work and make time for empty space in my head and body. Daily yoga, meditation and breathing practices have been pivotal in my ability to understand how to achieve and (mostly) maintain balance as I move through this life thing. A general slowing down long enough to observe myself. Solitude and the ocean have also been vital in helping me reach and maintain more homeostasis. My kryptonite, or the “thing” that most throws me off balance, which I believe is rather normal, is always overwhelm. Too much uncertainty, too many MAJOR things happening at once always rocks my balance. From there I either find equilibrium or fall.
September 23, 2020
My Herby Sundried Tomatoes are one of my staple recipes. I love cherry tomatoes so much that I always have loads of them on hand. Sometimes, I over buy and don’t eat them fast enough, but that is never a problem with this recipe. This is a recipe that was brought into my repertoire so I could live in a perpetual state of cherry tomato gluttony, and I have zero shame in that. I tend to use the fresh and dried ones the same way, tossing them literally into everything (salads, soups, sandwiches, eggs, etc.) and it’s a nice change when the fresh tomatoes I had been enjoying suddenly morph into the dried version – yielding a deeper, richer, smokier version of the fresh. You can further heighten the flavor by adding fresh herbs and other spices.
August 15, 2020
Scented geraniums are one of the most widely collected and celebrated herbal plants on the planet. They come in just about every scent and color imaginable, and their most common trait is their extreme potency of flavor and scent. They are used in teas, tinctures, baking and potpourri type concoctions. Only recently have I begun to enjoy them and use them in my cooking. For years I shunned them as an overly potent potpourri ingredient. Their scent can be overwhelming in gardens, I have never enjoyed how they take over the scent of a garden. In my opinion, the scent and potency of a geranium was always a little too much to make any use of it. But then the masters showed me the way.
August 13, 2020
If you were to pick two items that signal the climax of summer, they would be basil and heirloom tomatoes. Both of these heat loving crops peak and are at their most flavorful many long, hot days. In a way these items actually mark the beginning of the end of summer and they should serve as a reminder to all of us to indulge in the last sweet offerings of summer.
August 19, 2019
Summer | My Herbal Roots