10 Ways To Pussyfoot More Herbs Onto Your Table

MOSTLY WE’RE TAUGHT to think of herbs as seasoning. We add them in tiny amounts to our cooking, a teaspoon here, a sprinkle there.

What if we thought of herbs as food?

Herbs, especially those grown in fertile, living soil, are some of the world’s healthiest foods. Fresh herbs can contain high amounts of minerals like iron, as well as vitamins, including C, A, and K. Many herbs contain polyphenols, plant compounds that are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. These are the compounds that fight cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. In addition, herbs have specific health benefits—basil and dill help lower blood pressure, for example—putting everyday food in the category of medicine.

Somewhere my gold ring slipped off my thumb. Surely one day I’ll find it in the wild onions.

~*~

Not long ago I had a friend try a seaweed kimchi that I’d purchased from a stand at the Forsyth Farmers Market in Savannah, Ga., near where I live.

“This tastes like something swept up off a fishing dock,” my friend said. “I guess it’s an acquired taste.”

“Everything is an acquired taste,” I said.

That’s not entirely accurate. Genes do influence how we taste foods. The gene TAS2R38 is involved in mediating bitter tastes, for example, and variations in the gene show up in how people perceive bitterness.

As you know, some people experience cilantro as soapy, some love it.

However, most taste preferences are cultural rather than genetic. Our national diet of highly processed food has steered us toward salty, crunchy, fatty, and devastatingly sweet foods. Our health suffers with diets high in processed foods. You know that. You realize we should be eating whole foods, mostly plants, and the plants should be extremely diverse—not just broccoli but also arugula. And not just arugula but also dandelion greens. We especially need bitter.

~*~

So how?

I have collected 10 ways you can sneak more herbs into your diet.

1. Smuggle Ginger in Your Coffee

One day in the supermarket another woman and I were reaching for fresh ginger at the same time. “Oh, what do you do with ginger?” I asked her. The woman explained to me in great detail that she puts one slice of ginger in her coffee each morning. Then, when she gets to the bottom of the cup of coffee, she eats the ginger. So I started adding a slice of ginger to my coffee. Eating it is difficult for me—fresh ginger is very strong. Sometimes I don’t eat it.

Since I’ve been doing this for a few years, I’ve found that a tuber of fresh ginger can ruin before you get it eaten at the rate of a sliver a day. So now I slice an entire tuber and freeze the pieces, then grab a piece from the freezer for morning coffee.

2. Steep a Quart Jar of Daily Wellness Tea

I got this idea from Rob and Krista Rahm of Forrest Green Farm in Virginia, during a talk they gave at Monticello.

Before bed put herbs in a quart mason jar. Choose herbs that will be good for your system and needs. Pour hot water over the herbs and let them steep all night. Next morning you have available a quart of herb tea ready for the drinking. Herb suggestions: peppermint, red clover, oat straw, nettle, raspberry, horsetail.

3. Assemble Herbal Vinegars

Pack pretty jars with all kinds of leafy herbs and edible flowers. Add garlic cloves and/or cayenne peppers. Pour warmed vinegar over the herbs. Seal the bottles and store away from sunlight from several weeks to a month. Shake occasionally. Then use on salads as you would any vinegar.

4. Shake Up a Herbal Viniagrette

The basic recipe from Moosewood Cookbook is the best I’ve found for vinaigrette, because it builds variations into the recipe. The basis of every batch is

• 1 cup olive oil

• 4-5 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1/2-1 tsp salt

• 1-2 medium cloves of garlic, minced

Combine everything in a jar. Cover tightly and shake well.

Here are some variations.

• add very finely minced parsley

• add very finely minced other herbs (fresh or dried basil, dill, marjoram, chives, thyme, etc)

• use flavored or balsamic vinegar

• add a few tablespoons of fruit juice

Often to save time I make this in a blender, which produces a creamy green-goddess-like dressing, but without the dairy.

Here’s a recipe card for you.

5. Make Pesto

I’m pasting in a basic recipe for basil pesto, but please remember that you can make pesto with any herbs in any amount. I often make it with the weed lambs-quarters.

Here’s a recipe card for you for Garlic Scape Pesto. Scapes are the unopened flower buds of garlic. For us they are ready in June. We have a large patch of garlic, so we’re out almost every day cutting scapes. We make fresh pesto, freeze 1-cup jars of the pesto, and also freeze bags of the scapes. One word of warning—the scapes get stronger in flavor when frozen. Thawed pesto is very strong.

6. Go Wild With Garnish

Here’s an idea. Before you plate up a meal, sprinkle the plate liberally with fresh herbs. Serve your food directly on the layer of herb leaves.

7. Use Herbed Butters

Herbed butters could be eaten in any way you eat butter.

For Sage Butter, pick some small sage leaves, about 20 leaves for 4 tbsp of butter. Slice the leaves into 1/4-inch strips and cook for 3-4 minutes in 1/2 stick of butter. This serves 10-12. It has a nutty aroma.

I’m pasting in a recipe card for Cilantro Butter, for eating on grilled corn.

8. Don’t Forget Tabbouleh

Tabouleh is basically a herb salad because it contains tons of chopped parsley, mint, scallions, and garlic. This recipe at loveandlemons.com is as good as any.

9. Make Rosemary Dipping Oil

Long ago at a restaurant in Tallahassee, Fla. I was introduced to rosemary dipping oil. Mince the leaves of a stalk of rosemary. Scrap this onto a plate or shallow dish. Grate in a lot of Parmesan cheese and add good olive oil. We use our local oil from Terra Dolce, made with olives grown by my old friend Tommie Williams. This is my favorite way to eat Raven’s sourdough bread.

10. Don’t Waste the Stems

Freeze herb stems, roots, and extra leaves when you’re cooking, and the next time you boil up broth, throw them into the pot. Or—and I learned this from the herbalist Patricia Kyritsi Howell, author of Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians—add lots of medicinal and nutritious herbs to your broths. They become tonics.

~*~

Okay, that’s 10 ideas for you. What ideas do you have for me?

~*~

If You Have a Recipe Notebook

I have 50 paper copies of a recipe for Candied Ginger and for Rhubarb Crisp. They were left over, and I’ve been saving these for teaching a workshop on “Herbs as Food.” If you want copies, let me know and I’ll stick them in the mail to you. I’ll need your address, which you may want to send in a direct message.

A praying mantis on holy basil, also known as tulsi, in my garden.

If You Like to Poke Around on Rabbit Trails

Here’s a beautiful post from Katie Weinberger in which she dreams of yarrow.

Mary Hutto Fruchter writes about garlic.

Kami McBride offers a course on medicinal meals at “My Herbal Kitchen.”

Jesse Wolf & Kiva Rose Hardin produce an incredible Herbaria Monthly. It is a delight from front to back.

~*~

In the Comments

If you could only grow one herb—in a pot or in the ground—which would it be?

~*~

Everything below these 3 dividers is sales and marketing. Enter if you dare.

---

---

---

I Found a Few Copies of the Special Edition Craft & Current. Yes.

For the Kickstarter launch I ordered 100 special-edition copies of Craft & Current. However, joy of joys, the printer apparently sent a few extra copies. I put them on offer yesterday on my website. This is a limited-number, special-edition hardback, clothbound in blue, with a blue placeholder ribbon, and with the title embossed in silver on the front. Each book is signed and numbered between 100 & 113 (with date and place) and shipped to you in biodegradable, plastic-free packaging. These are perfect for folks who collect beautiful books.

The special edition sold for $44 on Kickstarter. Today it’s $44 (plus $6 postage). $50 total. And you also get in this bundle a Companion Workbook, a spiral-bound workbook that extracts exercises from the book, designed with space for you to write & list & think. ($15 value) I’m also throwing in the Audio version of Craft & Current so you can listen while you make pesto with a pestle. You receive all 3 items for the price of the Special Edition book. Limited availability, limited time.

---

I’m Missing 3 Folks

Speaking of the Kickstarter, I’ve never been able to reach three folks to obtain mailing addresses. Perhaps their email changed or my messages keep going to spam. I have packages ready to mail to Robin Whitfield, Marguerite Madden, and Megan Bihn. If you’re friends, would you let them know?

UPDATE: Robin’s & Marguerite’s books are on the way to them.

---

New Workshop—Online via Zoom

How to Market Your Book: Workshop for Writers

Do you have a new book out? One in progress? A past release that didn’t go as far as you hoped? I’m teaching a 2-hour book marketing workshop on Thursday evening, April 24, 2025, 6:30-8:30 pm Eastern Time. I’ll offer you tools, strategies, and mindset to get your book out into the world and help your book find its people. I’ll share lessons learned from 25+ years of promoting books.

Marketing isn’t about gimmicks or degrees—it’s about showing up for your work and your readers. If you’re ready to move beyond the myth that books sell themselves and that selling is not the job of the writer, this workshop is for you.

How to Market Your Book | Workshop for Writers

Thursday, April 24, 2025, 6:30-8:30 pm Eastern Time

Online via Zoom

Cost is $44

---

At Long Last—Online via Zoom

Plug Into the Mysterium: Workshop for Writers

At work in every piece of good writing is something beyond craft and technique. That thing is Spirit. Invisibles. Magic. Mystery. Myth. The Imaginal Realm. Intuition. The Unconscious. How does a writer access this mysterium?

For 2 hours I’ll be guiding you in how to plug into the mysterium. I’ll be talking about following golden strands, mantras, prayer, rewilding, divination, dreamwork, archetypes, psychedelics, and much more.

Plug Into the Mysterium: Workshop for Writers

Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 7-9 pm Eastern Time

Live via Zoom

Cost is $33

---

A Course in Memoir—This Summer—Online via Zoom

Tell Your Own Story: Writing Memoir

Honestly, I thought I might never teach memoir again, since I want to focus on creative nonfiction. But I’ve decided to do it this summer, 1 hour mid-day on Wednesdays, June to August. Here are the deets.

• Level: Beginner to Mid-Level

• Weekly for 12 weeks

• Wednesdays 11 am-12 noon Eastern

• June 4-Aug. 20, 2025

• Live via Zoom

• Participant numbers not limited

• Open Mic Night

What you get–

• Twelve 1-hour sessions of guidance on writing structure, technique, and craft

• A lesson on memoir each session

• Time to write 30+ pieces by the end of the summer

• Pages of important, useful handouts in pdf form

• My honest, authentic interest in your story & my belief in you

• And more.

Your investment–

• $300 (it will never be this price again)

• willingness to put in at least 1 hour at your desk each week

• & a sincere desire to get your stories down on paper.

---

Saito Book Going Out

Twenty-eight people purchased tickets for the current Sunday journaling sessions that included a copy of Madeleine Jubilee Saito’s debut book, You Are a Sacred Place. It consists of her signature poetry comix or what I began to call “Wisdom Quadrants” after I saw them in the anthology All We Can Save. The books have arrived, and I mailed the first packages out yesterday. (The package contains my book The Seed Underground.) The final orders will go out tomorrow.

Speaking of, thanks to the guest artists and speakers in Journaling the Garden, namely

• Clare Walker Leslie

• Nina Veteto

• Rachel Michaud

• Jasmin Pittman

• Susan Loeb

• Jeanne Malmgren

• MK Creel

Thanks especially to Rachel Michaud for facilitating the online sessions. If you need a stellar facilitator for an online event, I highly recommend Rachel and will be glad to share her contact info.

If you would like to experience the Sunday journaling school, let me know and I’ll send you a link to attend a session at no charge. This coming Sunday (April 13) our guest is Nina Veteto of Flora and Forage. We skip Easter Sunday, then Rachel and Jasmin will join us the Sunday after that (April 27).

Seriously, if you want to sample an online nature journaling session, be in touch. I’m at wildfire1491@yahoo.com.