Lettuce Love: Decorative & Nutritious Mesclun Mix 

Mesclun is from the Provençal region of France and translates to “mixture” as in a mixture of lettuce greens. The traditional Mesclun mix consists of chervil, arugula, endive, and lettuce in precise proportions, but nowadays, many other wild greens may be included. Create a mix suitable to your own palette by adding the frilly fronds of frisée, spicy mizuna, nutty-flavored mâche, or mahogany-red radicchio, watercress, parsley or other herbs. The objective is to have a mix that is sweet, spicy, bitter, crisp…and beautiful.  

Lettuces, herbs, container tomatoes, and edible flowers can be grown easily in planters on a sunny deck or porch where they are readily available at a quick snip for the kitchen cook. 

motherearthnewsmag: Preserving Herbs for Best Flavor By Vicki Mattern What’s the best way to preserve culinary herbs?  It’s best to dry herbs that have pronounced flavors and tough or needle-like leaves — such as rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, lavender, mint and bay. Freeze herbs with more subtle flavors and tender leaves — such as parsley, cilantro and chervil. Preserving basil is the exception: It dries well, but its flavor is brighter if frozen.

motherearthnewsmag:

Preserving Herbs for Best Flavor

By Vicki Mattern

What’s the best way to preserve culinary herbs? 

It’s best to dry herbs that have pronounced flavors and tough or needle-like leaves — such as rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, lavender, mint and bay. Freeze herbs with more subtle flavors and tender leaves — such as parsley, cilantro and chervil. Preserving basil is the exception: It dries well, but its flavor is brighter if frozen.

(via uglytomatoes)

It’s what’s for dinner: How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher (1942). Not only could this woman cook, but she could write. Remember prose? If you haven’t read Fisher’s written word, get going. What’s in store? Well, how about “gastronomical voodoo” and other pearls like the “history and mystery” of War Cake (what not to bake). Go on. Take a bite. There’s a lot you still don’t know. And it all happened before the “internets.”

It’s what’s for dinner: How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher (1942). Not only could this woman cook, but she could write. Remember prose? If you haven’t read Fisher’s written word, get going. What’s in store? Well, how about “gastronomical voodoo” and other pearls like the “history and mystery” of War Cake (what not to bake).
Go on. Take a bite. There’s a lot you still don’t know. And it all happened before the “internets.”