This beautifully illustrated cookbook explains in detail how to grow and cook with herbs, based on the expertise of a longtime curator of the Huntington Herb Garden in San Marino, CA.

The first glorious full-color life-style book about gardening, decorating, and cooking with herbs.More than 450 full-color illustrations and 25 black-and-white illustrations.

A practical guide to the celebration of Beltaine and the sacred herbs of spring • Explores the identification, harvest, and safe practical and ritual use of more than 90 plants and trees • Details rituals for honoring the traditional Gods and Goddesses of spring, such as the Goddess Chloris, the Goddess Flora, and the Daghda • Reveals which herbs to use for luck, magic, protection, purification, abundance, fertility, and love as well as the herbs of the Faeries and Elves and herbs for journeying to the Otherworld and for contacting the High Gods and Goddesses The festival of Beltaine, May Day, is a celebration of the return of spring and the promise of summer, a time for love magic and spells for increasing the fertility of the land and the plants that grow upon it. Like Samhain in autumn, Beltaine is also a time when the veil between the physical and spiritual world is at its most transparent and the ancestors and denizens of the Otherworld easily interact with the world of humans. Presenting a practical guide to the celebration of Beltaine, Ellen Evert Hopman examines the plants, customs, foods, drinks, and rituals of May Day across many cultures. Discussing the gods and goddesses of spring, Hopman details the rituals for honoring them as well as traditional poems, prayers, incantations, folk rhymes, and sayings related to this time of year. She explores well dressing, the custom of honoring the source of sacred water by decorating a well. She also looks at Beltaine’s association with Walpurgisnacht and Hexennacht, which fall the preceding evening. In the extensive section on the sacred plants of Beltaine, the author explores more than 90 herbs and trees, offering spells, rituals, and recipes alongside their medicinal healing uses. She reveals sacred woods suitable for the Beltaine fires and Beltaine flowers for rituals and spells. She explores herbs for luck, magic, purification, abundance, and love; herbs for protection, such as bindweed, elder, and St. John’s wort; herbs of the Faeries and Elves, such as burdock and dandelion; and herbs for journeying to the Otherworld and contacting the high gods and goddesses. She also details the identification, harvest, and preparation of seasonal edible herbs, greens, mushrooms, and flowers. Woven throughout with mystical tales of folk, Faery, and sacred herbs, this guide offers each of us practical and magical ways to connect with Nature, the plant kingdom, and the Spirits that surround us in the season of spring.

Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook celebrates and reclaims the lost art of turning locally gathered wild plants into nutritious, delicious meals ? a traditional foodway long practiced by our ancestors but neglected in modern times. The book's beautiful, instructive botanical illustrations and enlightening recipes offer an adventurous and satisfying way to eat locally and seasonally. Readers will be able to identify, harvest, prepare, eat, and savor the wild bounty all around them. We share this project with you out of our long commitment to connecting with nature through food and art. The effort weaves together Dina?s 30 years of passionate investigations into wild-plant identification, foraging, and cooking with Wendy?s deft artistic skills honed over 15 years as a botanical illustrator. The result is an abundance of recipes and illustrations that explore creative ways to bring wild edibles into our lives. Part One of Foraging & Feasting serves as a visual guide, tracking 50 plants through their growing cycle. The images illustrate the culinary uses of wild plants at various seasons. Part Two contains easy-to-use references including Plant Chart Centerfolds and Seasonal Flow Charts. Part Three brings you into the kitchen; here you'll find more than 100 master recipes and countless variations formulated to help you easily turn wild plants into delectable salads, soups, beverages, meat dishes, desserts, and a host of other culinary delights. These recipes are not limited to wild ingredients; they can be used with cultivated ingredients as well, purchased or homegrown. Many of the recipes can be made to accommodate various dietary restrictions: gluten-free, casein-free, dairy-free, grain-free, and sugar-free. Among those who will find the book valuable are the health-conscious members of the Weston A Price Foundation, ever in search of nutrient-dense, traditional whole foods. Slow Food enthusiasts will appreciate how focusing on ancient, seas¬¬unusual edibles.

Discover the flavors and uses of common wild plants with this herbalist guide featuring recipes and tips on foraging right outside your door. When we think of wild plants with medicinal or culinary benefits, we typically think of something exotic and obscure. But many of the plants growing in our own neighborhoods can be just as useful and tasty as anything sold in a health food store. In Herbal Adventures, herbalist Rachel Wolf reveals the properties and uses of ten common plants—including chickweeds, dandelions, catnip and others. With the tips and recipes in this book, you can enjoy delicious homemade soda, flower petal pancakes, chickweed pesto, or your own herbal tea. Plus you'll be able to make a soothing balm for cuts and scrapes, syrup to quiet your cough, a rejuvenating herbal hair rinse, and much more! "A real gem . . . a perfect beginners' book no matter your age." —Rosemary Gladstar

A Woman's Book of Herbs is an extensive guide to using herbs for healing the mind, body, and spirit. This book is bursting with definitive information on a broad range of herbs including where, when, and how to collect them and the best methods for drying, storing, and preparing them. Readers will also discover herbs' many physical, emotional, and ritual uses, their mythological history and astrological significance, and their main chemical components. Recipes for herbal food, drinks, and medicines are also provided. Infused with the author's empowering holistic approach to healing and backed by her firm belief that women should have an understanding of and control over the causes of ill-health and the variety of healing processes, A Woman's Book of Herbs is a unique and indispensable work. This is a reissue of the much-loved classic, first published in 1992.

In a world of constant change and crisis, the relationship between humans and their environment has never been more vital. Louisiana Herb Journal invites readers into the world of medicinal herbs, introducing fifty herbs found in Louisiana, with details on identification, habitat, distribution, healing properties, and traditional uses, including instruction on popular preparation methods such as tinctures and teas. Interspersed with these practical details, herbalist Corinne Martin shares stories that foster a true connection between readers and the world around them, from tales of childhood cherry picking to harvest mishaps to folklife traditions passed down through the generations. Accessible to experienced and rookie herbalists alike, Louisiana Herb Journal offers a new way of looking at the natural world, getting to know one’s “home ground” through a lens of healing and participation. Family connections, an intimate knowledge of the surrounding lands and waters, strong community bonds, an irrepressible resilience, and a great capacity for celebrating life despite hardships are part and parcel of what it means to be from Louisiana. A celebration of the state and the cultures of those who live there, Louisiana Herb Journal reflects on the value of medicinal herbs in promoting personal healing and addressing current challenges to the state’s environmental and economic stability. Readers will gain a deeper recognition of the natural wealth Louisiana enjoys and the ways that our stewardship of wild plants can impact our personal health as well as the state’s ecological future.