One of my New Year’s resolutions (other than losing the five pounds I gained over the holidays) is to use as much as I can of what I have on hand in my pantry and freezer before buying more groceries. It is not as easy as it sounds. This morning I was looking out my kitchen window and noticed the silver-grey Bergarrten sage. What could I do with the leaves today? I needed to cook some dry white beans for a soup - sage leaves were added to the water. I fried some in a little bit of olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper - these will be used as a garnish for the soup. It has been a great while since I have explored the other possibilities of what to do with sage. This week some more fried leaves will top some mashed potatoes. I know I have on hand all the ingredients to make the sage-feta cornbread from Jerry Traunfeld’s book ‘The Herbal Kitchen’. (By the way, the Sage Rush, a cocktail in the same book was our Super Bowl cocktail - it was great).

Sage needs lots of sun and very well drained soils. There have been three or four times in the last twenty-five years that I have had to replace my plant because it just up and died. Most of the time, it was because of a particularly wet winter. The blossoms are good sprinkled on salads. The best time to trim back your plant is right after it blooms. It is so easy to forget what you have…I am going to continue the process…