Sigrid's 2008 Herb Class

A free sample of Sigrid's 2008 Herb Class can be found HERE.

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In 1969 Marjorie Benson, my herb and plant mentor, introduced me to the marvelous flavours of fresh herbs. She brought her herb garden from Minnesota to her new home in Nelson British Columbia and shared her plant knowledge and herb plants with me. Building on her wisdom, I have grown her original herbs and added to them until now I grow over 100 different herbs in my garden in a narrow mountain valley in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia. This book is a distillation of years of working with herbs far from their native sunny Mediterranean habitat.

Much of Herb Book is a manual on how grow and use your herbs. Emphasis is on preserving the flavours for winter and using fresh herbs all seasons in all types of dishes from herbed yogurt cheese to orange rose slices. Eating locally from your own garden gives you a 100 foot diet. From the first small sprigs just a week after the snow is gone to first snowfall in November we eat fresh herbs at every meal. When they are finally covered with a blanket of snow we still have herbs in the form of pestos, vinegars, butters and even fresh herbs from the bags of herbs in the fridge.

For years I taught a class on how to grow herbs and use them. The recipes in Herb Book are the seasonal herb meals prepared by my pupils after our work in the herb garden. In April or May we gathered for a Planning and Planting class and prepared a 30-dish herb smorgasbord. June brought an Early Harvest class with a weeding session and herb gathering to start making herb butters, herb pestos, herb vinegars and drying herbs all to preserve flavours for the next winter. When the session was over we came in for an English High Tea with 12 savories and a mint-thyme-parsley tea followed by 10 sweets with a flower and mint tea. August saw us gathering herbs for the Late Harvest class and preparing a 25-dish herb barbecue, which included grilled rabbit or chicken with herbs, grilled vegetables par steamed and infused with herbs. We closed with a rose orange sherry trifle and lavender-rose-orange mint tea. Late October concluded the course with the class Putting the Garden to Bed so it would come through our long snowy winter. Our meal was an 8 dish fall seasonal feast of sage and corn chowder, squash thyme pie, apple sweet marjoram cabbage salad with a traditional colonial American dessert of apple bergamot rolly polly.

The Herb Book includes all these recipes

Basics

Spreads

Soups

Salads

Breads

Quick Breads

Vegan main dishes

Meat, Fish and Chicken main dishes

Egg dishes

Cheese dishes

Hot vegetable dishes

Sweets

Teas

Herb garden notes

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