Thai Basil

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Liminality & Thanksgiving Recipes October 26th, 2023 I have written endlessly about the liminal spaces in my life when the ambiguity …

October 26, 2023

It’s New Year’s Eve Day, I’m in Miami, Florida where I have traveled with my pets for a little 45-day snowbirding experience (and possibly the subconscious desire to travel to the source and unravel some deep seeded and complicated emotions I have been carrying for far too long). It’s currently 80 degrees and I’m in my swimsuit outside by the pool near the beach with my pets. I have a sweet little menu prepared for a dinner tonight and was just lollygagging a bit when I got a text asking me for the recipe for that cold weather chicken congee I made during the recent artic chill. You remember, the congee recipe that I had labeled one of my best dishes. The one I was supposed to have posted the recipe for already, the one I keep getting asked for. Here you go. I’ll warn you, my congee recipe is a little different. But what do I know, I had never made congee before. But different is who I am and what I do and staying authentic to who I am is a constant goal, New Year or not.

December 31, 2022

Unbeknownst to most people, an herb garden on the verge of disappearing into a cold winter offers some of the most potent flavors imaginable for making culinary magic. The same herb garden that appears to be dying an unceremonious death is alive and rich with potency. The metaphor is strong: life cycles carry the essence of transformation and change, and change offers something new; in this case new flavors, aromas and textures that we might not expect. My herb gardens tend to be wild, not surprising I suspect. Most try and control gardens, I go with the flow my Missouri garden is pretty wild. Part of this wildness is because, I’m lazy, in the way that I don’t like to exude effort that’s not needed, and in my Blue Eye abode I have had to grow many herbs in subpar conditions: too much shade, too little water, soil that is too acidic or in spots Inca (my dog) wont pee. This is real and herbs thrive in realness, which is likely why I have always been drawn to them. I have found great beauty (and flavor) in my wild herb garden here in Missouri.

November 10, 2022
Thai Basil | My Herbal Roots