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roads-rise-to-meet-me · 6 years

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*:slides in and whispers:* please feed me hcs of ariadne and kieran.. and the little family they start together 🌺🌹🌸💐💕❤

AHHHH sure thing!!!! ;-: Gonna be long so fair warning rip

Westward Bound- So the two of them decide to head west together shortly after Arthur leaves and Kieran gets to stay. - Arthur had planted the idea in Kieran’s mind that he should go with Ariadne and build an honest life elsewhere. - She was a little unsure at first, but ultimately the idea of a clean slate and an honest living was all too tempting for her. - They left the gang in the hands of Ariadne’s most trusted associates, packed up everything they had to their names, and set off out west on horseback.- They rode for a while, camping out under the stars at night, hunting and fishing for their meals, until eventually they came across a nice enough little town and rented a room in the saloon. - They stayed in that room long term while they got all of their ducks in a row. - Ariadne already had some money; a parting gift from the gang. But they needed a bit more before they were comfortable purchasing property.- Kieran took jobs as a stable boy in the town and at some of the surrounding ranches; wherever his services were needed, he went. The special way he had with horses started to make him into a bit of a local celebrity. - Ariadne took small jobs around the community here and there, but most of the time she was out hunting and selling the pelts for money. Hunting was in her blood; her grandfather is an old trapper that travels around the states. You might have heard of him… ;) - They settled into a routine, and slowly but surely started filling up multiple coffee tins with cash. - Kieran was riding home back to the saloon one evening when he came across an elderly man and his ailing horse out on the trail. He assisted the man in getting his horse back into town, and the stranger was grateful. Enough so that he insisted on paying Kieran for his help despite what little he had to his name. - Kieran walked away from the incident with a few dollars, a golden pocket watch, and some jewelry; a couple of necklaces, and most notably, a ring. - He sold the other items off for money, as the old man had intended, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the ring. So he kept it in a pocket in his shirt, just in case. - Kieran and Ariadne’s hard work finally came to fruition the day they bought their ranch. A house, a barn, and a few paddocks, all in need of some TLC. Oh well, they already made it this far! - They put in the work, fixed the place up, and after a while K&A Ranch was finally finished and ready to operate. - They already had a few horses. Kieran had Branwen, and Ariadne had her own stallion, Theo. But if you think she had left her other hoof-children behind you’re crazy. (Ariadne’s Hoof-Children) - They took care of their horses, and Ariadne ended up building a coop and bringing home a few chickens. Part of the property was set aside for a garden patch where the pair began to grow their own produce.- More animals were added to their growing menagerie. Goats, cows, sheep. Even a peacock turned up near the chicken coop one day and never left. - His name is Hank and he follows them around like a dog. Meet The Duffy’s- Kieran finally proposed a little over a year after they got the ranch. - It was around 2 AM and they were both sitting down against the wall of Rio’s stall. The first foal on their ranch had just been born, and they had been up all night helping Rio deliver her baby. - It was a testament to how far they had come together; from a couple of outlaws trying to survive out in the woods, to proper ranch owners, raising horses. Living.- Kieran figured there was just one thing missing from the otherwise picture perfect happy ending, and Ariadne was already saying yes before he was done popping the question. - They had a small ceremony attended by a few of the friends they had made around town, and survived through all of the questions one might ask a newly married couple. - “So, what about kids?” - They just smiled and laughed and waved it off. That was a discussion for later on, they said. - And it was…At least until it wasn’t. Cause it wasn’t even a month into their new married life when Ariadne started showing all the signs she remembered so well from her first pregnancy. And she was positively terrified.- The messy ending to her relationship with Blake had left her scarred. What if it really was her fault that her son hadn’t made it? And what would Kieran do? Would he react the same way? - Kieran knew she was afraid, and he reassured her that no matter what happened, he wasn’t going anywhere, and they were going to get through it together. - They began to prepare for the baby. And as the due date drew closer, they discussed what they would name him/her. They were enthralled to find that they were both on the same page for a boy’s name. - “Arthur.” - 9 months seemed like they flew by, and Kieran and Ariadne Duffy welcomed to the world a bouncing baby…Girl. - They named her Morgan. - Morgan Duffy got her daddy’s dark brown locks, but her freckles, and her button nose, and the way it crinkled up when she was mad was all her mother.- She was born into a life in the saddle and took to it like a duck to water. Kieran took her for rides around the countryside on Branwen even before she could walk, and taught her to ride at an early age by ponying her around on Casanova. By age 8 Morgan knew how to tack up, mount, and ride a horse with no assistance. - Ariadne taught her to read and write, just like she had with Kieran after her and her gang had rescued him. She also taught Morgan how to shoot a gun and hunt. More than anything, Ariadne wanted her daughter to be self sufficient. - Morgan developed a fiery personality, and was never afraid to speak her mind; a quality that filled her parents with both pride and exasperation depending on the social setting. - One day, she announced that she had a request to make. - “I want a baby brother or sister!” - Kieran and Ariadne, who already considered their hands full with the ranch and their heavily opinionated blessing of a child, told her “Maybe someday.” - Someday came a lot sooner than previously intended and the family prepared for the arrival of Brayden Arthur Duffy. - Brayden was born with a full head of auburn hair coupled with eyes that resembled his father’s in every way. - He received the same teachings that his older sister had when she was younger, and Morgan was always around to put her own spin on it. - However it was clear from an early age that Brayden had his own distinct personality. Morgan liked to wander the surrounding countryside all day once her chores were completed, but Brayden was content to stay closer to home. He preferred to spend his time hanging out with the animals and could always be found with either a book, or a pencil and journal in his hands. - Kieran and Ariadne settled in nicely into domestic bliss with their two kids, their home, and their animals. It was a quiet life, but it was the kind of life both of them preferred over one spent on the run.

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead online #rdr oc #rdr oc: ariadne foster #kieran duffy #ariadne foster x kieran duffy #oc x canon #rdr: the foster gang #cometoceantrenches

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catherindonald · 4 years

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Nose-Twisting Nasturtiums

By Susan Belsinger

Plant Profile Family: Tropaeolaceae Scientific name: Tropaeolum majus Common names: nasturtium, Indian cress, trophy cress, trophywort Native Habitat: Peru, parts of South America Plant Type: Annual Growth Habit: Dwarf bushy cultivars grow from 8 to 18 inches in height, while the climbers can easily reach 6 to 10 feet, or more. Hardiness: Hardy in frost-free locations Light: Best in full sun; can tolerate a few hours of shade, which produces more leaves with fewer flowers Water: Moist but not wet; will tolerate some drought Soil: Friable and porous garden loam, well-drained soil; does well in containers Propagation: Seeds in spring

“Nasturtium is an herb which for me has three uses: it lights sober herb beds with its bright colors of orange and yellow; all summer it decorates salads with leaves and gay flowers; and in the autumn it provides green seeds for pickling. Does it not earn for itself a place in an herb garden?”

—Annie Burnham Carter In An Herb Garden

One of my very favorite flowers that I grow in all of my gardens for many reasons are nasturtiums, and I affectionately refer to these garden rowdies as “nasties”. They are easy to cultivate and effortlessly fill in garden spaces with their mounds of fun foliage even before their showy colors appear. The unusual foliage has rounded, wavy-edged leaves that are attached to their stems from the underside, directly in the center of the leaves, so that they resemble fairy umbrellas. These center-stemmed leaves radiate veins from a center dot looking somewhat star-like and range in various shades of green: grey-green, bright green, blue-green, and variegated. The spurred, trumpet-shaped flowers are available in a palette of bright colors from tropical creamy yellow, peach, and coral to vivid primary yellows and reds, in addition to knockout oranges, golds and even mahogany. Many are splashed or dotted with colors and my new favorite, ‘Bloody Mary’, has a different design and range of colors on each bloom. It is said that due to the shield-like form of the leaf and the helmet-shaped blooms that the botanical name derives from tropaion, the Greek word for “trophy.”

No wonder Monet cultivated them liberally throughout the gardens at Giverny, where he captured the mounding masses of jewel-colored blooms in numerous of his famous paintings. Thomas Jefferson planted nasturtiums in his garden every year and lamented when he couldn’t get seed enough for a bed of them measuring 10 x 19-yards. In Green Enchantment by Rosetta Clarkson, she writes of a Dr. Fernie commenting on “nasturtium flowers giving out sparks of an electric nature at sunset.” Richard Mabey of The New Age Herbalist notes that, “It is said that on hot summer days sparks are emitted from the heart of the flower due to its high phosphoric acid content.” Others, however, have attributed this phenomenon to an interesting optical illusion produced by the interplay of our eyes and the contrast of the flowers and foliage at dusk. For further explanation, read this interesting, informative article about nasturtiums: https://heirloomcottagegarden.weebly.com/blog/nasturtium-tropaeolum-majus

We owe our gratitude to the Spanish conquistadores for bringing the fiery-colored Tropaeolum minus back to Europe from South America more than 500 years ago. The species is a vine that can easily grow about 8 to 10 feet and likes a fence or trellis for support, while the more common nasturtium cultivars grow in mounds or trail along borders, spill over walls or over the edges of containers. Nasturtiums start easily from seed in average soil and full sun; I put them in early in my Zone 7 garden (about the same time that I put in early greens) in late March, early April. I like the ritual—going about the garden with my seed packs—poking the fat bumpy-round seeds (which sort of remind me of a small chickpea) in the cold earth with my finger along the edges of the kitchen bed. I plant them anywhere from 8 inches (for masses) to a good foot apart. Keep them well watered; however, do not fertilize too much or you’ll get massive leaf growth with few blooms. Harvest leaves regularly to keep them bushy.

I just love that their name combines the Latin nasus for “nose” and tortus for “twisted” describing how our nose twists or wrinkles when we inhale their spicy scent. In The Fragrant Path by Louise Beebe Wilder she agrees, “ …perhaps the individual odours of the summer garden are derived from certain plants which persons of hyper-sensitive nasal organs may turn from in disgust. I call these plants Nose-twisters, because the rough and heady scent of Nasturtium, which seems to have in it something bitter, something peppery, and a vague underlying smoky sweetness, is representative of them.”

In the kitchen, you can use both the fresh foliage and flowers to add a pleasant hint of heat and pungency (this dissipates when cooked so I use them mostly fresh) to many summer dishes. The leaves are high in vitamin C and add a peppery cress-like flavor to salads, sandwiches, green sauces, or they can be shredded and tossed with pasta, rice, couscous or chicken salad, or chopped as a topping for pizza.

The blossoms have the same pepperiness as the leaves, but are milder with a hint of floral scent. They make excellent containers for cold salads—egg, chicken, and vegetable—as well as cheese spreads. Since they are a bit fragile when filled, I tend to put them on a slice of vegetable or bread in order to pick them up easily. Whole flowers can be used in salads or as garnishes; vinegar flavored with nasturtium flowers is lovely in color and interesting in flavor; or cut flowers and leaves into chiffonade (thin ribbons) and blend with butter, or toss with egg salad, noodles, vegetables, or fish. The unopened buds, marinated in wine or vinegar, make an unusual refrigerator pickle. Seeds are harvested and pickled and used as a substitute for capers.

To harvest leaves, pick them and remove stems, wash and use like lettuce. For flowers, pick them with long stems and keep them in a glass of water until ready for preparation. Rinse blooms gently and shake or pat them dry. Pull the bloom from the stem and use whole or gently tear into separate petals. While they can stand cool weather, they will succumb to the first frost.

Sources Belsinger, Susan and Arthur O. Tucker. 2016. The Culinary Herbal. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press.

Belsinger, Susan. 1991. Flowers in the Kitchen. Loveland, Colorado: Interweave Press.

Carter, Annie Burnham. 1947. In An Herb Garden. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus). Retrieved from https://heirloomcottagegarden.weebly.com/blog/nasturtium-tropaeolum-majus

Wilder. Elizabeth Beebe. 1996. The Fragrant Path. Point Roberts, Washington: Hartley & Marks Publishers, Inc.

Photos courtesy of the author. 1) Bloody Mary; 2) Alaska series; 3) Nasty bouquet; 4) Flower and herb butter

Susan is a culinary herbalist, food writer, educator, and photographer whose work has been published in numerous publications. She has authored a number of award-winning books. Her latest book, The Culinary Herbal: Growing & Preserving 97 Flavorful Herbs was co-authored with the late Dr. Arthur Tucker. Susan is passionate about herbs and her work, sharing the joy of gardening and cooking through teaching & writing, and inspiring others to get in touch with their senses of smell & taste.

Nose-Twisting Nasturtiums published first on https://marcuskeever.blogspot.com/

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houstonlocalus-blog · 7 years

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Houston’s Arts Reach: The Overall Conversation

Debtfair at Art League Houston. Photo: Art League Houston

On any given day, one can drive or walk around Houston and spot a dozen tantalizing public projects, exhibitions, and creative endeavors throughout the city. From new city engagement with public parks, bike trails, university campuses, and museum properties, there’s a plethora of signs of our artistic driven initiatives and dozens more to be found. Houston is an incredibly supportive arts city and more sustainable than its metropolitan counterparts. Of its many museums, institutions, nonprofits, galleries, and private institutions, there are myriad national and international projects on the burner building exposure for local and regional artists. Not all projects in this state are presented only for other Texans to see. We all know the story of the big fish in the little pond. However, as early back as the 1930s, Houston has been working on cross pollination projects with groups and organizations from around the world to build on that exposure and present our talents abroad and throughout the country. It’s certainly not a transcendent idea to build up the city’s arts reputation by exposing our creatives to other parts of the world, but there has been some exhilarating efforts recently. As a major museum, it’s mandatory to keep the international conversation fresh and at the forefront. Same goes for many of our veteran institutions and nonprofits. Spaces like DiverseWorks, Project Row Houses, FotoFest, and Art League Houston have worked diligently to maintain this ongoing conversation.

In 1948 The Foundation of the Contemporary Arts Association (CAA), now the Contemporary Arts Museum, became known within Houston’s playing field. Their first round of exhibitions focused heavily on internationally known artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Arthur Dove, and Joan Miro. The idea was to keep Houston validated on a national and international level and to continue to educate the local collector base and everyday art viewer, combined with the efforts of the Museum of Fine Arts. CAA, MFAH, and private collections such as The Menil Collection and their family efforts continued to grow and gain momentum and putting Houston into play worldwide. For the last 70 years the efforts to create a constant dialog has persisted as the primary motivation. Today, this can be discovered by just flipping through an art history book. As the years go by, the context of the dialog changes as the climate of the art world evolves. The presenting realm becomes vast, complicated, and difficult to navigate in different directions. The exhibition spaces as well as the artists surrounding them must remain nimble and dialed into these directions, ever changing and ever moving. Factors such as financial temperature, regional support, and overall stability certainly play a prominent role into what can and can not happen. However, remaining on a swivel with a 360 view is key and is certainly a pleasing quality we have recently seen in Houston.

Lina Dib, “Artist Time Management Machine” at Debtfair at Art League Houston

Patricia Alvarez is an anthropologist and filmmaker whose scholarly research and creative practice develops in the folds between ethnography, critical theory, and the documentary arts. Her most recent works converge on issues of gender and ethnic representations in neoliberal, post-authoritarian Peru. Alvarez’s films and installations have been exhibited in national and international film festivals and galleries across the US and Puerto Rico. She completed her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with a Designated Emphasis in Film and Digital Media, and her BA in Anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piers, and Alvarez is currently working a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Rice University. Her creative practice speaks volumes and while currently a Houstonian, she has aggressively traveled the last several years, presenting her stunning short film Entretejido, an observational-ethnographic film that weaves together the different sites and communities involved in making alpaca wool fashions. The film explores the varying representations of indigeneity that emerge out of these encounters, which both challenge and reproduce historically-rooted racism. A sensorial immersion into the textures that compose this supply chain from animal to runway, the film brings viewers into contact with the ways objects we wear are entangled in racial politics and histories. Much like her other works, there is depth and diversity in the overall delivery. Once through the documentary movements of the film, contemporary art delivered through fashion is brought to light as an art form cultivated through industry and branding, but originating from small Peruvian villages. Cutting from village-based storefront sewing circles to high end fashion runways, local craft becomes high art, while the film remains a story of heritage and new beginnings.

Debtfair at Art League Houston

Over the past 6 years, Art League Houston has consistently reformulated its programming to incubate diversity and multinational reach. In 2015 Occupy Museums, a New York City based activist and progressive arts organization, and ALH joined forces locally on a recent project, Debtfair. The collective invited local artists to submit original works for a group exhibition based on their own economic realities as a way to explore how artists think about the concept of debt in relation to their own art-making practice. Debtfair, is an ongoing artistic campaign to expose the relationship between economic inequality in the art market and artists’ growing debt burdens, explores the idea that all spaces function with a layer of extraction just below the surface. Here in Houston, the project received mixed reviews upfront due in part to the city’s unique artistic financial structuring, but quickly cultivated a sweeping discourse over the next year presenting the project and Houston collaboration in Chicago and Warsaw, Poland. With momentum growing, the New York-based group was chosen to participate in the Whitney Biennial and brought along with them the Houston chapter, represented by ALH. “Michael Peranteau and I were excited to learn that the Debtfair project by Occupy Museums had been selected for the 2017 Whitney Biennial,” Visual Arts Director Jennie Ash eagerly commented. “It has been great to see a project that we believed in travel internationally to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw last year, and now be developed to reflect artists from around the country for an exhibition like the Whitney Biennial.”

Included in Debtfair and its international exhibitions was multidisciplinary artist and anthropologist Lina Dib. Her installations and compositions range from the experimental to the ethnographic and investigate socio-technical and ecological change. Dib is an affiliate artist at the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University in Montreal and Tx/Rx labs in Houston, and a research fellow at the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Rice University, where she also teaches. Dib and her practice are versatile and have landed her exhibitions at such institutions as Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; MOP Projects, Sydney, and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Dib’s sculpture “Artists Time Management Machine (ATM Machine)” features a 1970s modified time card punch machine. Each time card, as it would be at the workplace, rests alongside in a unified slot system and punched with phrases such as “Writing,” “Fucking Off,” and “Thinking I Should Have Been a Doctor.” The sculpture reads more as an installation element, part of a larger picture, and I found this intriguing about the work. Her piece certainly maintained as one of the stronger pieces in the Houston collection and represented Dib’s ongoing archaeological creative process and complimented Occupy Museums’ participation at the Whitney.

Harold Mendez, “When the night is going wrong or when the day is full of empty promise.” Courtesy of the artist and Tiffany & Co.

Former CORE Fellow and Houstonian Harold Mendez was also selected to participate in this years Whitney Biennial. For the Whitney, in collaboration with Tiffany and Co., Mendez presents a sterling-silver pre-Columbian death mask, now a high end conceptual object, paying homage to his ancestors. “Let X stand, if it can for the one’s unfound (After Proceso Pentágono) II” features a crumpled and marred photo of a man’s head being yanked, punched, pulled, and attacked by unknown assailants from outside the frame. Mendez successfully recreated the photo by the Mexican art collective Grupo Proceso Pentágono. Both pieces show his depth and minimal approach of subject and object and his extraordinary grasp on culture, history, and political temperature. His time spent as a Core Fellow benefited both Mendez and the Houston community with his ongoing projects and collaborations with such spaces as Project Row Houses, Artpace, Sicardi Gallery, Lawndale Art Center, and a dozen more side projects. Now spending most of his time in LA, he continues to maintain a solid presence across the country with his exhibitions and begins on his MacArthur Foundation project in Havana, Cuba in 2018.

Houston sits on a solid foundation for new opportunities to emerge everyday. The creative community within the region is fertile and advantageous with a great many key supporters at hand. While at times still honing our national and international arts coverage through the glossy press world, the unique local structure allows flexibility and bold outlets for our artists and institutions. The benefit of this has been generating a strong community with prevalent diversity throughout exhibitions, collaborations, and the direction of local artists. The overall conversation Houston continues to provide is a catalyst for drawing in creatives from neighboring cities and countries and is ever present within much of the curations being set forth. Growing programs and festivals such as DiverseWorks’ Diverse Discourse and Mitchell Center’s annual CounterCurrent, which just concluded this weekend, are prime examples of these successful partnerships that import and export talent. Houston is the third largest arts city in the country and it is certainly satisfying to see our vision projecting past the foreground and beyond the horizon from so many local talents.

Houston’s Arts Reach: The Overall Conversation this is a repost

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catherindonald · 4 years

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Harbinger of Spring Look-Alikes: Dead Nettle & Henbit

By Susan Belsinger

The first spring wildflowers, herbs, and weeds are popping out all over. Two that frequently appear together are both members of the mint family, Lamiaceae: dead nettle (Lamium purpureum) and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule). Since they often grow in a patch together, are about the same height, and both have bright green leaves and purplish-pink flowers that bloom at the same time, at first glance, they are often mistaken as the same plant. However, held side-by-side and inspected a bit closer, they are very different in appearance. Similarities also include how and where they grow. Their early spring blooms are some of the first food for honeybees, and the tubular shape of their flowers attract hummingbirds.

Both of these spring harbingers prefer sunny spots where the land or garden soil has been disturbed, along roadsides and in meadows and lawns, and will tolerate some shade. They are often found growing side-by-side and intertwined together in patches in moist, fertile soil. I’d say that they grow anywhere from 8-to 12-inches tall, sometimes being the same height in a group together, though occasionally the henbit stretches just a little bit taller than the dead nettle. The henbit is a bit rangier and will even sprawl along the ground, whereas dead nettle is upright.

Henbit (left) and dead nettle (right) have obvious differences when compared side by side.

Harvest unsprayed, tender spikes early in the season—both the leaves and flowers are edible— and be sure of the correct identification of the plants before you eat them (dead nettle has some look-alike plants before it flowers). Both plants are easy to identify once they bloom. I find that many of our weedy harbingers taste green and earthy; I get strong mineral flavors from nettles and henbit similar to chickweed. Although they are members of the mint family, there is no mint to their flavors. If the stems are tough, then I remove them; if tender, I often add them to my Wild Greens Salsa Verde recipe (see below) since it will be pounded or pureed.

Wild, edible greens are powerful, good food and offer a variety of flavors for free; they are nutritious and usually high in vitamins and minerals. In Europe, the gentle word “potherb” is given to wild greens that offer the knowledgeable forager herbs for the cooking pot. Both of these plants can be eaten raw in salads, sandwiches, wraps, and salsas, or cooked in soups and sauces, or combined in a mess o’ greens with other potherbs or green leaves like kale, spinach, chard, tat soi, etc. I prefer to combine them with other greens rather than eat them in quantity on their own.

Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum)

Dead nettle

Sometimes called red nettle, purple nettle, and even purple archangel, it is thought that this is called dead nettle because its leaves resemble stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), though they do not have the stinging characteristic of Urtica. Spotted nettle (Lamium maculatum) is closely related, however its leaves have whitish spots or blotches.

The foliage of purple dead nettle is wrinkled and hirsute (hairy), and the edges of the heart-shaped leaves have rounded teeth. The leaves grow opposite one another on their noticeably square stems, mostly on the lower stem and at the top (leaving the center stem bare), where they overlap and give the appearance of being overcrowded. Foliage is a medium, bright green although depending upon growing conditions, the leaves clustered at the very top are often purplish-red in color. It is quite attractive against the dainty, single, tubular, lavender-pink flowers. Beginning foragers might want to wait to harvest when the plant is in flower—that way there is no mistaking it for another plant.

In doing research on the medicinal aspects of dead nettle, there are many actions listed: antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, astringent, diuretic, diaphoretic, purgative, and styptic. Since it has astringent and styptic qualities, the fresh leaves are recommended for external wounds or cuts. Tea from the leaves is purported to aid in digestion and is used as a mild laxative. It is also used for women’s issues for heavy menstrual flow and cramps. Caution: dead nettle should not be taken while pregnant or trying to become pregnant.

Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule)

This plant is often mistakenly called dead nettle (L. purpureum). I’ve read that henbit gets its name because chickens like it and seek it out, though I am not sure about that—the chickens that I know don’t pay it much attention—though they have lots of other plants and insects to forage. While dead nettle has petioled leaves (little leaf stems attaching the leaves to the central stem), henbit’s lower leaves grow on short stalks, and the mid-to upper, ruffled and scallop-edged leaves appear in a half-circle, clasped around the square stem.

Henbit

I love how Billy Joe Tatum perfectly describes the flowers of henbit in Billy Joe Tatum’s Wild Foods Field Guide and Cookbook: “The tiny flower buds look like beet-colored velvet beads, as small as a pinhead at first. As the buds open you see silken purplish flowers with long corollas, looking like Jack-in-the-pulpits in miniature.” Often upon close inspection, the tiny flowers are pale pinkish inside with deeper-colored spots; each flower turns into a four-seeded fruit.

Chickens in the dead nettle.

Henbit’s properties are somewhat similar to those of dead nettle and include: anti-rheumatic, diaphoretic, diuretic, febrifuge, laxative and stimulant. Henbit has been used to support good digestion, whether consumed raw or made into a tea, and has also been used to reduce a fever.

To prepare foraged greens:

To quickly capture the best flavor and nutrients, bring the greens to the kitchen as soon as they are harvested. Assemble a salad spinner or washing bowl, a cutting board, and the compost bucket. Run one gallon of water into the spinner or bowl. Add about 1/4 cup distilled white or apple cider vinegar to the water.

Methodically pull the tips or tender leaves from the stems. Pinch off leaves with yellow edges, or brown or black spots. Place the edible parts in the vinegar water as you work and submerge the mass in the water, plunging up and down several times to loosen foreign matter. Let the greens soak in the water for several minutes and the grit will fall to the bottom of the container. Lift them out and drain them. Discard the vinegar water and spin or pat the greens dry. Use fresh or cooked. If not using all of them, wrap them in a kitchen towel and store in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator for a few days.

Wild Greens Salsa Verde

(Makes about 2 1/2 cups)

This traditional green sauce goes well with any type of vegetable, whether it is grilled, steamed, oven-roasted, or crudités; it is also good with simply-prepared meat, chicken, fish, and pasta, or even tortilla chips. Vary the herbs that you have on hand or what is in season. When I can, I make this a wild green sauce by adding whatever I can forage: dead nettle, henbit, sorrel, chickweed, dandelion greens and/or flowers, purslane, lambs’ quarters, violet leaves, field cress, monarda, wild onions, or garlic. You can fill in with any seasonal greens from the garden if need be like parsley, fennel fronds, cilantro, arugula, spinach, etc. Sometimes, I add other ingredients—about 1 tablespoon of capers, a chopped boiled egg, or a handful of nuts, like pine nuts, walnuts, or pecans. The sauce can be made without the bread; it just helps to thicken it a bit.

1 1-inch slice country bread, crusts removed

3 large garlic cloves, slivered

About 1/2 cup olive oil

About 3 to 4 cups of mixed edible green leaves, picked over, washed and spun dry

1/4 cup minced sweet-tasting onion

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Soak the bread in a little water for 10 minutes, then squeeze most of the liquid from it. Add the bread and the garlic to the mortar or food processor and pound or pulse to coarsely chop.

Rough chop the greens. Add them a handful at a time, and pound them in a mortar and pestle or chop in a food processor. Use a little olive oil to loosen them.

Add the olive oil to the herbs as if making a mayonnaise, a few drops at a time, blending or pulsing to incorporate.

When most of the oil has been added, blend in the onion and vinegar. If you want to add capers, nuts, or a hardboiled egg, now is the time; pulse or pound to mix. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, and taste for seasoning. The sauce should be a little thinner than pesto—add a bit more oil, vinegar, or even a bit of water if need be.

Let the sauce stand at least 30 minutes before using—that way the flavors will develop and meld. Adjust the seasoning and serve at room temperature. The olive oil will not emulsify completely; a little will remain on top of the sauce. Store any leftover sauce in a tightly-covered glass container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Medicinal Disclaimer: It is the policy of The Herb Society of America, Inc. not to advise or recommend herbs for medicinal or health use. This information is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered as a recommendation or an endorsement of any particular medical or health treatment. Please consult a health care provider before pursuing any herbal treatments.

Susan is a culinary herbalist, food writer, educator, and photographer whose work has been published in numerous publications. She has authored a number of award-winning books. Her latest book, The Culinary Herbal: Growing & Preserving 97 Flavorful Herbs, was co-authored with the late Dr. Arthur Tucker. Susan is passionate about herbs and her work, sharing the joy of gardening and cooking through teaching and writing, and inspiring others to get in touch with their senses of smell and taste.

Harbinger of Spring Look-Alikes: Dead Nettle & Henbit published first on https://marcuskeever.blogspot.com/

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