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“Roux flung a handful of dried shavings on to the embers of his fire; the scent was sharp and immediate, lemon grass and lavender, sage and applewood and pine, like the campfires of my childhood.”
― Joanne Harris, Peaches for Father Francis

“Load the sailboat with bottles of white wine, olive oil, fishing rods, and yeasty, dark-crusted bread. Work your way carefully out of the narrow channels of the Cabras port on the western shore of Sardinia. Set sail for the open seas.
Navigate carefully around the archipelago of small boats fishing for sea bass, bream, squid. Steer clear of the lines of mussel nets swooping in long black arcs off the coastline. When you spot the crumbling stone tower, turn the boat north and nuzzle it gently into the electric blue-green waters along ancient Tharros. Drop anchor.
Strip down to your bathing suit. Load into the transport boat and head for shore. After a swim, make for the highest point on the peninsula, the one with the view of land and sea and history that will make your knees buckle. Stay focused. You're not here to admire the sun-baked ruins of one of Sardinia's oldest civilizations, a five-thousand-year-old settlement that wears the footprints of its inhabitants- Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans- like the layers of a cake. You're here to pick herbs growing wildly among the ancient tombs and temples, under shards of broken vases once holding humans' earliest attempts at inebriation. Taste this! Like peppermint, but spicy. And this! A version of wild lemon thyme, perfect with seafood. Pluck a handful of finocchio marino,sea fennel, a bright burst of anise with an undertow of salt.
Withfinocchioin fist, reboard the transport vessel and navigate toward the closest buoy. Grab the bright orange plastic, roll it over, and scrape off the thicket of mussels growing beneath. Repeat with the other buoys until you have enough mussels to fill a pot.
In the belly of the boat, bring the dish together: Scrub the mussels. Bring a pot of seawater to a raucous boil and drop in the spaghetti- cento grammi a testa. While the pasta cooks, blanch a few handfuls of the wild fennel to take away some of the sting. Remove the mussels from their shells and combine with sliced garlic, a glass of seawater, and a deluge of peppery local olive oil in a pan. Take the pasta constantly, checking for doneness. (Don't you dare overcook it!) When only the faintest resistance remains in the middle, drain and add to the pan of mussels. Move the pasta fast and frequently with a pair of tongs, emulsifying the water and mussel juice with the oil. Keep stirring and drizzling in oil until a glistening sheen forms on the surface of the pasta. This is called la mantecatura, the key to all great seafood pastas, so take the time to do it right.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“I followed the chef to the circular herb garden with relief. Here were familiar plants with gentle smells: thyme, dill, mint, basil, and others equally benign. He asked me to identify the ones I knew and gave me a brief dissertation on their uses: Dill was good with fish, thyme complemented veal, mint went well with fruit, and basil was perfect for the dreaded love apples. He plucked two large mint leaves with purplish undersides, placed one on his tongue, and gave me the other. We came to rest on a curved stone bench in the middle of the garden, and we sat there sucking on fresh mint, him enjoying the breeze, and me awaiting the judgement that must be coming.
He continued his lecture on herbs. He talked about the subtlety of bay laurel, the many varieties of thyme, and the use of edible flowers as garnishes.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief

“We walked among the different plants and by using The Book, we did our best to identify them and understand how to use them. Some were easy- spearmint, "for refreshment, strength, and healing," and rosemary, "for remembrance, and the prevention of nightmares." We also found a swathe of sage, which could be used "to cultivate wisdom and intelligence." When I came across a bunch of plants with dark green leaves and tiny white flowers, it took us quite a while to identify it by its drawing in The Book: gotu kola, an herb that could "restore the senses and clear confusion."
"Oh, look at this one," I said. "Saffron, for success. I should probably bake with that."
"If only it grew here," said Vik.
Finally, on the bank of a small stream, we found gigantic thyme stems, almost two feet tall and topped with plump clusters of purple flowers. "What's thyme good for?" I asked Vik as I plucked a dozen stems and inhaled their herbaceous scent.
"Thyme attracts affection, loyalty, and the goodwill of others," read Vik, "and can foster strength and courage when needed.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“I blew a strand of hair out of my face and wandered to a table where spices and herbs were laid out in jewellike bowls. Rosemary, thyme, spearmint, cinnamon, cardamom. Their fragrance beckoned me. My fingers twitched.
A pinch of delicate reddish-orange threads lay in a clear bowl. They smelled of sunshine.
Saffron. For success.
I knew exactly what to make.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“In return, Joe taught Jay more about the garden. Slowly the boy learned to tell lavender from rosemary from hyssop from sage. He learned to taste soil- a pinch between the finger and thumb slipped under the tongue, like a man testing fine tobacco- to determine its acidity. He learned how to calm a headache with crushed lavender, or a stomachache with peppermint. He learned to prepare skullcap tea and chamomile to aid sleep. He learned to plant marigolds in the potato patch to discourage parasites and to pick nettles from the top to make ale and to fork the sign against the evil eye if ever a magpie flew past.”
― Joanne Harris, Blackberry Wine

“ The seafood is so fresh it is otherworldly! Their rich umami flavors swirl together in my mouth like a whirlpool!
The pike is transcendental fresh, yes? It's tender and fatty and melty sweet!"
"I'm impressed he had the strength to cram this much powerful umami into a single dish! So refined, yet utterly savage. Ryo Kurokiba has reached a new pinnacle!"
"That looks sooo good!"
"But still, do all Japan pike have this much flavor in season?"
"Good point. Not all do.
How did he manage to create this strong of a flavor while using hardly any seasonings?
Hm?
Wait... it's faint, but I smell hints of a refreshing scent. A scent that is not seafood!"
"It is the fragrance of herbs."
"Exactly! I added a pat of this to the dish!"
"Aha!
Herb butter!
Finely chopped herbs and spices are mixed into softened butter...
... and then wrapped up and chilled in the refrigerator for a day to allow the flavors to meld."
"I stuck a pat of homemade herb butter into each wrap right before I put 'em in the oven. Baking on low heat made the butter melt slowly...
... allowing its richness to seep into every nook and cranny of the entire dish!"
Both flavor and fragrance have the punch of an exploding warhead! What an impeccably violent dish!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 12 [Shokugeki no Souma 12]

“Livia could have made a sugo blindfold- she had been making it almost every day for years. The only difficulty was, there were as many different kinds of sugo as there were days in a month. There was the everyday version, which might be no more than a handful of ripe tomatoes squashed with the tip of a knife to release the juices, then quickly fried in oil. There was the classic version, in which the tomatoes were simmered along with some garlic and onions until they had reduced to a thick, pulpy stew. Then there was a richer version, in which pieces of meat were cooked for several hours to extract all the flavor, and so on all the way up to rag¨´ del guardaporte, the gatekeeper's sauce, so called because it required someone to sit by it all day, adding little splashes of water to stop the rolls of meat stuffed with parsley, garlic and cheese from drying out.”
― Anthony Capella, The Wedding Officer

“Pots hung from the ceiling beams, between the festoons of braided garlic, the hams, the salsicce, bunches of mountain herbs for medicine, strings of dried porcini, necklaces of dried apple rings in winter, chains of dried figs. The smell of onions, of hot lard and smoldering oak wood, of cinnamon and pepper, always seemed to hang in the air. The larder was full of meat at all times, needless to say: not small pieces, but huge joints and sides of beef and lamb, which Mamma and Carenza could never hope to use just for our household, and which were quietly passed on to the monks of Santa Croce so that they could feed the poor. Carenza made salami with fennel seeds and garlic, prosciutto, pancetta. Sometimes the air in the larder was so salty that it stung your nostrils, and sometimes it reeked of spoiled blood from the garlands of hares, rabbits, quail, thrushes and countless other creatures that would arrive, bloody and limp, from Papa's personal game dealer.
Next to the larder, a door led out to our courtyard, which Mamma had kept filled with herbs. An ancient rosemary bush took up most of one side, and the air in summer was always full of bees. Sage, thyme, various kinds of mint, oregano, rocket, hyssop, lovage and basil grew in Mamma's collection of old terra-cotta pots. A fig tree was slowly pulling down the wall, and a tenacious, knotted olive tree had been struggling for years in the sunniest corner.”
― Philip Kazan, Appetite

“The difference between Hindu cuisine and Muslim cuisine is very easy to explain. In Kashmir the Hindus avoid sexy onions and garlic; they love the taste of heeng (asafetida) and the non-incestuous fennel and ginger. Muslims find heeng (and its sulfurous odor) unbearable. They adore garlic, green praans, garam masala, and on certain occasions, mawal flowers.”
― Jaspreet Singh, Chef

“Can you name me these ingredients?" Chef Amad¨ª points to the different herbs and spices. "I can see that you know," she says. And I do know.
I pick up the large leaf and sniff it. It's smaller than the type we use back home but I'd know that scent anywhere. "That one's bay leaf," I say. "And that seed is cardamom."
She nods and shoots me a wink.
She moves us to a different station and opens a container where several large octopi chill on beds of ice. I've never worked with octopus and I'm fascinated by the vibrant red color of the skin and the slippery feeling of it in my hands. She demonstrates with a knife how to slice through the octopus tentacles that she will marinate for grilling.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“ The spicy tingle that prickles at the nose is from the alkaloid piperine that's present in abundance in black pepper!
Together with the pyrazine that develops when paprika powder is heated, the two aromas meld together and form the strong base of the dish's overall scent!
The primary herbs used to ameliorate the gamy smell of the bear meat is thyme! The strong, herby scent of thymol- the active component of thyme- beautifully erases any stink the meat had!
Then, uh... there's the cayenne and the oregano... and... uh...
The oregano, and...
"Aaaah! I can't! I just can't!
Anytime I try to think, my mind just screams that it wants more!"
Exquisite!
Every last wisp of the bear meat's scent has been transformed into a powerfully savory flavor!
The delicate complexity of the fragrance and the deep layers of the umami flavor... there is no denying it.
"This dish...
surpasses Soma Yukihira's."
"I rubbed the bear meat with salt, my Cajun spice blend and other spices. I made sure to wrap it in a nice, thick coat of batter when I fried it up too.
Plus, when I marinated it before battering it, I used plenty of juniper berries in the marinade. I ground them in a spice grinder first to really bring out their scent.
Waves of juicy flavor so rich and refined that they even have a hint of sweetness to them should gush out of the bear meat with every bite.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 22 [Shokugeki no Souma 22]

“Once people saw how a single teaspoon can bring out the fragrance of scallion and ginger and garlic, or how a light coating can amplify the smokiness of tender roast meat,"- here, he bunched up his fingertips and brought them to his lips-"how could they turn away?”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“I sliced the chicken with my fingers and put it into a small skillet to warm, separate a couple of eggs, and whisk the yolks quickly until they have lightened and thickened. Pour in a healthy glug of cream, then grate a flurry of cheese over the top, mixing it in. I zest a lemon from the bowl into the mix, and then squeeze in the juice. Some salt and pepper. I go over to the pots in my window and, with the scissors I keep there, snip off some parsley and chives, which I chop roughly and add to the mix. When the pasta is al dente, I drain it quickly, reserving a bit of the cooking water, and add it to a large bowl with a knob of butter, mixing quickly to coat the pasta. I add in the lemon sauce, tossing with a pair of tongs. When the whole mass comes together in a slick velvet tumble of noodles, I taste for seasoning, add a bit more ground black pepper, and put the shredded chicken on top with a bit more grated cheese.
A fork and a cold beer out of the fridge, and I take the bowl out to the living room, tossing Simca a piece of chicken, and settle on the couch to watch TV, twirling long strands of the creamy lemony pasta onto my fork with pieces of the savory chicken, complete comfort food.”
― Stacey Ballis, How to Change a Life

“In the pantry she found a jug of olive oil, several bulbs of garlic and onion, some ripe tomatoes, half a lemon, several dates, a big cabbage, some rice, jars of cardamom, tea, pepper, green wheat, sugar, turmeric, salt, nutmeg, fenugreek, dried mint, saffron, cinnamon, oregano, sumac, lentils, and powdered coffee. And behind all this, glowing and sweating, smooth and satiny, black as onyx and fat as a baby, she found an eggplant.
Aunt Camille held it up high in the air with both hands like a midwife holds the newly caught infant and announced, "The answer to our prayers!"
Thus ensued some scooping and scraping, some slicing and dicing, some stuffing and some baking. She found a few raisins here, a few pine nuts there, did some frying in aliya- the fat of the lamb's tail. She had to experiment a bit with the heat in that fire-hold- and before you knew it, there was a magnificent dish of stuffed eggplant presented on a cobalt-blue glass platter.
The fragrance of the dish filled the kitchen and wafted around them as she carried the platter through the forest to the jinn. He hadn't stopped his prayers once in all this time, but as Aunt Camille drew closer, the rich, garlicky, buttery, nuttery, eggplanty flavor swirled around his head until he felt his senses would be lifted right out of his body.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

“He dipped his fork into the layers of eggplant and cheese. Moments later, it seemed to detonate in his mouth. The pasta, he now realized, had simply been a curtain raiser, carbohydrate to take the edge off his hunger, but this new dish was something else, teasing his appetite awake again, the intensity of the flavors bringing to life taste buds he had never even known existed. The cheese tasted so completely of cheese, the eggplant so rich and earthy, almost smoky; the herbs so full of flavor, requiring only a mouthful of wine to finish them off... He paused reverently and drank, then dug again with his fork.
The secondo was followed by a simple dessert of sliced pears baked with honey and rosemary. The flesh of the fruit looked as crisp and white as something Michelangelo might have carved with, but when he touched his spoon to it, it turned out to be as meltingly soft as ice cream. Putting it in his mouth, he was at first aware only of a wonderful, unfamiliar taste, a cascade of flavors which gradually broke itself down into its constituent parts. There was the sweetness of the honey, along with a faint floral scent from the abundant Vesuviani blossom on which the bees had fed. Then came the heady, sunshine-filled fragrance of the herbs, and only after that, the sharp tang of the fruit itself.
By the time the pears were eaten, both jugs of wine had been emptied too.”
― Anthony Capella, The Wedding Officer

“Steam inhalation is a lovely way to take in the goodness offered by some herbs.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree, The Mood Book: Crystals, Oils, and Rituals to Elevate Your Spirit

“At the far end of our plot he'd cleared a little square patch of land and planted herbs: thyme, rosemary, parsley, coriander, chives, sage and mint. I asked him if he was worried they'd be polluted by the city air. "You're all polluted yourselves," he said, but without animosity, not judgmental. "You breathe the air, what difference does it make if you eat it? It's already inside you." At night I used to visit our vegetable patch with a torch. I would crouch down with my feet on the bare earth and watch the velvety sage leaves catching the moisture, covering themselves in it, soaking it up. The rosemary held up its tiny daggers in the darkness as if trying to burst bubbles of water hovering just above the ground. And the tall tubes of chives, the spiky, green, seriously weird hair-style of a subterranean onion reaching upwards. Thyme crawled over the soil, like a detachment of the Resistance, grouped together, efficient, close-knit. I used to stay there thinking, resting. I liked being with plants, they're neutral, they don't talk, don't hear anything, have no longings or needs.”
― Agn¨¨s Desarthe, Chez Moi: A Novel

“When I pulled the tall, narrow door open, a barrage of smells assaulted me. First a sweet blend of cinnamon and cloves with earthy undertones of thyme and oregano, then a piney whiff of rosemary and a heady punch of basil. The pungent mix stunned me, and I stood still, letting it envelop me. Equally dazzling was the knowledge that many of those spices had come from remote parts of the world. They were previous commodities carried over deserts and mountains and oceans, too expensive for any but the richest kitchens.”
― Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief

“The loin of Cinta Senese had been sitting in the cold room, begging to be cooked. I'd shown it to Filippo- This is our supper, I'd said, and he'd replied that supper was too far away, and didn't the painters deserve the best, serving God as they did? So I'd grabbed it, along with some garlic, thyme, rosemary, peppercorns and nutmeg. Surely they'd have salt at the studio... Filippo had bought some onions, a flask of milk and a hunk of prosciutto on the way. I hunted around in the small, chaotic niche where the artists kept their food and discovered a dusty flask of olive oil. Sniffing it dubiously, I found it was quite fresh: the dark green oil from the hills behind Arezzo. In Florence we almost always cooked in lard, oil would do in a pinch.
The kiln was lit but not being used for anything, and the fire was dying down. I threw some pieces of oak onto it, chopped the onions and the ham with a borrowed knife, cut the loin away from the ribs. The artists had a trivet and some old pans which they used to cook with every now and again, though mostly they lived on pies from the cook-shop up the street. There was an earthenware pot with a cracked lid, which seemed clean enough. I put it on the trivet, poured in a good stream of the green oil, browned the meat in its wrapping of fatty rind. Sandro gave up a cup of white wine, unwillingly, which I threw over the pork. When it had cooked off, I crushed two big cloves of garlic and added them along with the rosemary I had brought, and a handful of thyme. The milk had just foamed, and I poured it over the meat. The air filled with a rich, creamy, meaty waft.”
― Philip Kazan, Appetite

“Thus a dish of tench and eel was arranged so that the pointed head of the eels, gills splayed, thrust through a sea of delicate yellow sauce (toasted breadcrumbs, red wine and vinegar, more red wine reduced to defrutum, long pepper, grains of paradise, cloves, all passed through a sieve and tinted with saffron) towards the gaping lips of the tench. A plate of grilled partridges was presented with the birds still spitted from arsenal to beak, the spits radiating out from a magnificent cockerel, skinned, roasted and recloaked in its feathers, tail and red-combed head; the whole arranged on an armature so that it raised one leg and crowed at the ceiling. Inside the hollow body of the cockerel I had arranged a small silver alembic, its narrow end, no wider than a stalk of grass (I had borrowed it from an alchemist I knew through the Academy) protruding from the beak, and below it a tiny spirit lamp, which I lit as the serving men were already taking the dish away. The alembic was filled with Greco wine tinted with the milk of almonds, and I calculated that the wine would boil more or less when the dish was set on the table, and jet from the proud cock, showering the skewered partridges in aromatic white sauce.
There were the ripest figs, all splitting, of course, served with boiled crayfish- as eager, these bright red fellows, to explore the figs as the eels had been curious about the tench- and torte of rucola and pine nuts, liberally spiced with garlic and cloves.”
― Philip Kazan, Appetite

“There were the subtle malts and brans of the crust and the pallid no-taste of good old Florentine bread. The snaking sour-sweet of the beef, like a slab of porphyry shot through with crystalline onion sugars, salt and soil-rolled toffee carrots; sparks of bitter thyme and mint oils; the velvet honeycomb of fat;”
― Philip Kazan, Appetite

“What is it?" Her interest piqued by the heavenly aroma.
"Delicious," I said. I could have told her it was soup made up of parsley, spinach, dill, saut¨¦ed onions, thin noodles, chickpeas, kidney beans, dried yogurt, dried mint, garlic, oil, and salt, but why spoil the surprise?”
― Sara Farizan, Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love

“As she drank, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine she was drinking her grandmother's porridge. What she wouldn't give for a hot bowl of fish congee, sprinkled with green scallions and topped with a dollop of sesame oil! She'd even have willingly downed one of her mother's herbal soups; Fa Li used to make red sage soup almost every day when Mulan was growing up. How she'd hated the smell and pungent taste. She used to pick out the chopped pieces of the root and chew on the sweet wolfberries instead.
She missed home so much.”
― Elizabeth Lim, Reflection

“The garden was a tyrant, and they lived off it. Tomatoes, the reddest she had ever seen, their stalks twined up the cages Tim had built from galvanized wire. The peas were gone now, but Tim had planted radishes beneath the lettuces so that they might be shaded longer into the summer; each plant provided something for the other. Eggplants and peppers and squash, tents of beans, they were good for the soil. Basil and chives, a few melons, potatoes for the fall and keeping. And down the terrace, espaliered apples and pears that had fruited for decades, farther down the grapes, all this lushness, and then the wide blue stretch of the lake, a plate of glass.”
― Ashley Warlick, The Arrangement

“What an exquisite pike recipe. It was stunning from the very beginning, with the beautiful vision of its chef striding through the silvered moonlight to present his dish. The plating and presentation showed a thorough grasp of modern cooking trends, an important skill for all chefs. Given how the entire crowd was leaning forward in their seats, I can only say that his plan to draw attention to himself and away from his competitors was a rousing success. Most Acqua Pazza recipes involve anchovies in some fashion, but as his used herb butter, he wisely omitted them. Had both ingredients been included, their flavors would have clashed, muddying the overall taste of the dish. That herb butter, in fact, was the keystone upon which the whole dish rested. The butter's mellowness melded with the strong-tasting juices of each individual ingredient, underscoring them with a common flavor and tying them together, while the refreshing scent of the herbs kept the powerful impact of the dish's flavor from lingering too long on the tongue, making it instead a sharp and quick jab. That in turn masterfully accentuated the strong fragrance of the in-season pike. Both the herb butter and the heat-resistant film worked in perfect harmony for the sole purpose of emphasizing the deliciousness of the chosen pike...”
― Yuto Tsukuda, ʳꪤΥ½©`¥Þ 12 [Shokugeki no Souma 12]

“Once the danger of frost had passed she could plant her herb garden: creeping thyme, dill, sweet basil, hyssop, French tarragon, and bronze fennel. All wonderful flavors and scents added to her dishes.”
― Kate Jacobs, Comfort Food

“Joe himself remained the same as ever, picking his early fruit and laying it out in crates, making jam from windfalls, pointing out wild herbs and picking them when the moon was full, collecting bilberries from the moors and blackberries from the railway banking, preparing chutney from his tomatoes, piccalilli from his cauliflowers, lavender bags for sleeplessness, wintergreen for rapid healing, hot peppers and rosemary in oil and pickled onions for the winter. And, of course, there was the wine. Throughout all that summer Jay smelled wine brewing, fermenting, aging. All kinds of wine: beet root, pea pod, raspberry, elderflower, rose hip, jackapple, plum, parsnip, ginger, blackberry. The house was a distillery, with pans of fruit boiling on the stove, demijohns of wine waiting on the kitchen floor to be decanted into bottles, muslins drying on the clothesline for straining the fruit, sieves, buckets, bottles, funnels, laid out in neat rows ready for use.”
― Joanne Harris, Blackberry Wine

“I've got a leftover cooked pork chop from dinner last night, an acorn squash, pistachio nuts, and honey vinegar."
"Okay," I say, practically watching the wheels turning in his little head. "Time starts... now!"
Ian gets down to business, steeling his little chef's knife.
"Talk me through it as you go," I say.
"I'm going to do a pork chop and roasted squash quesadilla with pistachio chimichurri and honey vinegar crema."
"That seems smart. Tell me why as you prep."
Ian begins slicing the acorn squash into rings, laying them on a baking sheet and drizzling with olive oil. "Well, the pork chop is already cooked, and quesadillas are a smart use for leftovers because they cook fast so things don't have time to dry out or get tough. The squash has good sweetness, which will go well with the pork, and will also be friends with the honey vinegar."
"Good. Why not just toss the pistachios into the quesadilla?"
He seasons the acorn squash rings expertly with kosher salt, taking a pinch from the bowl and holding his hand at eye level, raining the salt crystals down evenly over the squash, and then pops the tray in the oven. "Because the heat of cooking would make them lose their snap and you need that textural element for contrast with the soft quesadilla."
"Excellent. Tell me about the chimichurri."
He throws the pistachios into a small nonstick saut¨¦ pan and starts to toast them. "Well, I'm toasting the nuts to bring out the flavor and intensify the crunch, and I'm going to chop them roughly and mix them with minced green olives, mint, parsley, shallots, olive oil, a touch of the honey vinegar, maybe some red pepper flakes for heat.”
― Stacey Ballis, How to Change a Life

“WHEN it comes to ignorance, no weapon then become any useful because ignorance alone can destroy the entire world easily without firing even a short or long gun.

But before the moon set off from East to West tonight, let me ask you this, '' WHO CREATED THE SUN AND THE MOON ? ''
- Nana Adu-Boafo Jnr

#NABJ #TheHerbalist #Moon #Moonlight #SUN #SUNlight #MYself”
― T/Dr. Nana Adu-Boafo Jnr