China Bayles' Book of Days (46 page)

Good Gifts from the Home: Jams, Jellies & Preserves,
by Linda Ferrari

AUGUST 9

Today is Izaak Walton’s birthday. He is known for his book
The Compleat Angler
, and for this remark about lavender-scented sheets: “I long to be in a house where the sheets smell of lavender.”

“Whoever heard of anybody having a normal week just before her wedding?” Ruby demanded. “Why, things haven’t even started to get difficult. We haven’t heard Sunday’s weather forecast yet.”

More headaches. I held the lavender to my nose and sniffed.

—LAVENDER LIES: A CHINA BAYLES MYSTERY

Lavender Lies
: About China’s Books

Lavender was a natural choice when it came to selecting a signature herb for that all-important book in which China and McQuaid would finally (after many trials, tribulations, and setbacks) get married. Lavender is, after all, the favorite of most brides, and China is no exception. It’s a traditional headache remedy, too—and who doesn’t suffer from a headache or two when they’re planning a wedding?

Before China and McQuaid can get married, they have headaches to fix and mysteries to solve. There’s the who-killed-Edgar-Coleman mystery, about a local real estate shark found shot to death in his garage. With the small-town gossip mill turning at top speed, it doesn’t take long for China to learn that Coleman was blackmailing several City Council members—did one of them do him in? Then there’s the mystery of a missing child, and a mother’s agonized search. The final mystery, of course, has to do with whether the long-anticipated wedding will actually come off, for while China, Ruby, and their friends are making wedding arrangements, McQuaid has been appointed as Pecan Springs’ interim police chief, and it’s his job to solve a murder. China can forget about a honeymoon—unless she can help McQuaid catch Coleman’s killer.

Whether you’re helping with a wedding or solving a murder, lavender will provide sweet, welcome relief from headaches and stress. Take a basket to the herb garden and pick the flower spikes just as the buds are opening. If that headache is really getting you down, sniff lavender often, or try some lavender tea. You can add the fresh or dried flowers to homemade soaps, cosmetics, potpourris, and sachets, or use them in cookies, vinegars, jellies, and teas.

More Reading:

Lavender Lies: A China Bayles Mystery,
by Susan Wittig Albert

One of the country names for meadowsweet is bridewort because this was the favourite plant for strewing at wedding festivals.

—KAY SANECKI, HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HERB GARDEN

AUGUST 10

In the days when Roses were valued more for their fragrance, sweet flavour, and medicinal virtues than for their beauty the petals were used in countless ways.

—ELEANOUR SINCLAIR ROHDE, ROSE RECIPES
FROM OLDEN TIMES

The Fragrant Rose

There’s no greater pleasure than to walk through the garden on a bright morning when the sweet, summery fragrance of roses fills the air. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could preserve that scent for always? You could make a necklace of rose beads (see May 20); or you could try another of the many old-fashioned ways of capturing that glorious fragrance.

ROSE OIL

Make your own delightful rose massage oil with this simple recipe. Pack 4 cups of fresh scented rose petals into a glass jar. Cover with 1 cup almond oil and let stand for two days. Strain the oil into another jar, pressing the oil from the petals. Discard the petals. Repack the jar with fresh petals, and pour the scented oil over it. Repeat several times, until the fragrance has reached the desired intensity.

ROSE WATER

Put 2 cups of scented rose petals into a nonreactive saucepan. Add 4 cups of distilled water, and simmer over low heat until the liquid is reduced by about half. Cool. Strain and discard the petals. If you’d like a stronger scent, repeat, using fresh petals and enough water to make 4 cups. Keep in a spray bottle to use on your hair and skin—even nicer when it’s cooled in the refrigerator.

ROSE SUGAR

Make this fragrant sugar to sprinkle over strawberries and add to herbal tea. Bruise ½ cup clean, scented rose petals in a mortar. Stir petals into 1 cup superfine granulated sugar and store in a lidded container for 3 weeks. Sift the sugar from the petals. Use immediately or store in a clean, dry container.

Discover more delightful things to make with roses:

Rose Recipes from Olden Times,
by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde

Bags to Scent Linen. Take Rose leaves dried in the shade, Cloves beat to a gross [thick] powder and Mace scraped; mix them together and put the composition into little bags.

—THE TOILET OF FLORA, 1779

AUGUST 11

An addiction to gardening is not all bad when you consider all the other choices in life.

—CORA LEA BELL

Taste-Tempting Fruit Vinegars

The peaches are ripe and luscious, and the market is displaying beautiful raspberries, blueberries, and cherries. Use them, along with a variety of herbs and spices, to make a vinegar, and you’ll have a shelf of wonderful taste-tempters all winter long.

HOW TO MAKE A FRUIT VINEGAR, WITH HERBS

Pit the fruit if necessary, cut up or mash it lightly. Wash the fresh herbs and bruise lightly. Put fruit and herbs into a quart or half-gallon jar and cover completely with vinegar. Put on the lid and set the container in a dark, cool place for at least a week, shaking every day and making sure that the vinegar covers the fruit and herbs. Steep as long as a month, checking for flavor. For the most intense taste, strain out the fruit and herbs, pour the flavored vinegar over fresh, prepared fruit and herbs, and steep again. When you’re satisfied, strain into a nonreactive pan. Add sweetener (up to ½ cup sugar or ¼ cup honey to each 2 cups of vinegar). Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring. Skim off any foam, let cool, and pour into sterilized bottles. Cap and label. (You’ll want to experiment with sweeteners; some people prefer none at all.)

SUGGESTED COMBINATIONS

Use red wine vinegar with these fruits and herbs: Raspberries, lemon thyme, and rosemary Cherries, tarragon, and anise hyssop Cranberries, mint, orange peel, cinnamon stick

Use white wine vinegar with these combinations: Peaches, opal basil, cinnamon stick Raspberries, fragrant rose petals, rose geranium Strawberries, mint, candied ginger Strawberries, peaches, opal basil, candied ginger

Read more about making and using fruit vinegar:
Gourmet Vinegars: The How-tos of Making and Cooking with Vinegars
, by Marsha Peters Johnson

If the sage tree thrives and grows
The master’s not master and that he knows.
—ENGLISH HERB LORE

AUGUST 12

The Theme Garden for August: A Tea Garden.

Do you remember during hot summer days you would pause by the lemon balm in a tour of the garden and draw the leafy tips through your lightly closed, warm, moist hands? What a fragrance would be released. You no doubt did this to the bee-balm, the peppermint, applemint or many another herb which makes a fragrant tea.

—ROSETTA E. CLARKSON, MAGIC GARDENS

A Garden of Herbal Teas

In our busy lives, let’s not forget the pleasure of taking tea in the garden, with the birds singing, the roses buzzing with delirious bees, and the air sweet with the scent of honeysuckle. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? Easy, too. All we need is a teapot, a teacup, tea herbs, fresh or dried, and the time to sit quietly and sip.

Creating a garden of tea plants doesn’t have to be difficult, either. For an instant tea garden, try clustering pots of tea herbs on your deck, beside a small table and pair of chairs. No room for pots on the floor? Hang them, or line them up on your deck railing. Or put cushions and a low table beneath a luxuriant trailing vine—hops, for instance, which will bring the scent of fresh-mown hay to a pot of tea. If you have the space, you might want to place a sundial in the center of a square or circular plot and arrange the plants around it, the taller ones in the center or the back, low plants around the edge. Add a small fountain, and the falling water will play a soft musical accompaniment to your own private tea ceremony.

SOME MUCH-LOVED TEA HERBS FOR YOUR GARDEN

SERVING TEA IN THE GARDEN

Serving tea in the garden is easier if you’re organized for it. A handsome china teapot or glass pitcher, delicate cups and saucers or glasses for iced tea, a pretty tray, a spotless tea cloth, a small vase of flowers, a plate of sweets or savories—if you keep what you need in one place, you’re more likely to use it. And if you’ve already arranged your tea garden to include a place for several chairs, you’ll want to invite a friend or two and make an event of it. There’s nothing nicer on a warm summer afternoon!

Read more about tea gardens:

Herbal Tea Gardens: 22 Plans for Your Enjoyment & Well-being,
by Marietta Marshall Marcin

Tea Gardens: Places to Make and Take Tea,
by Ann Lovejoy

AUGUST 13

My new herbal calendar arrived today!

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying.
—ROBERT HERRICK

Time Is Still A-Flying: From Susan’s Journal

Every year, my friend Theresa Loe sends me her herbal wall calendar—always a beauty, filled Theresa’s notes on gardening, crafting, and cooking with herbs and Peggy Turchette’s gorgeous drawings. (Peggy has also done the drawings for this book.) Theresa has been creating her calendar since 2001, and she’s still spilling over with delightful ideas to mark and measure time, herbally speaking.

I love garden calendars, and collect them by the dozen. But I also love the old “books of days”—the book you’re reading now is a modern example of the genre. My favorite was published in 1862:
The Book of Days. A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar.
Robert Chambers, the author, tells me that tansy cakes are an important custom at Easter, that the herb horsetail was used as a “children’s bottle brush,” and that “A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay.” And then there is Charles Kightly’s
The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore
, whose entry for tomorrow . . . well, you’ll see, when you get to August 14. Another personal favorite:
A Country-man’s Daybook: An Anthology of Countryside Lore
, compiled by C. N. French in 1929 and “Dedicated to Cottage Gardeners.” For today, I read this meteorological admonition:

If the moon show a silver shield,
Be not afraid to reap your field,
But if she rises haloed round,
Soon we’ll tread on deluged ground.

I am also reminded to “never offer your hen for sale on a rainy day” and “Day and night, sun and moon, air and light, everyone must have, but none can buy.”

I’ll keep these wise words in mind. I hope you will, too. Meanwhile, I really must do something about my rough hands. On her October, 2006, calendar page, Theresa offers a great suggestion: