Linda Ly's Blog, page 34

Salad Burnet: An Herb That Tastes Like a Cucumber

I recently dug and divided the salad burnet in my herb garden and a thought occurred to me — why didn’t more people use this ancient herb? With its clean, crisp cucumber flavor, salad burnet is surprising to those who try it for the first time, and appreciated the more it’s used in the kitchen.

Introduced to Elizabethan England in the 16th century as an ornamental herb, the leaves were floated as a garnish in goblets of wine. Eventually they found favor in European cuisine (where they’re oft...

Puffed Apple Pancake

I’ve been road tripping around Northern California all month (have you been following me on Instagram?) and as the weeks have passed, I’ve really been enjoying the change of seasons. The pine needles are dropping, the leaves are turning color, and the days are getting cooler. It’s something we don’t see much of in Southern California, especially with the Indian summers we usually have in September.

But up north, it’s undeniably fall. And one of the first telltale signs of fall is the arrival...

Five Things Friday

The five little things that made my week…

1. Getting my sunset kayak on in Tomales Bay. I was hoping to paddle through the bioluminescence this time of year, but the glow was very faint, even on a moonless night. C’est la vie.

2. Despite the lack of bioluminescence, that evening paddle was one of the most amazing excursions I’ve been on — windless, moonless, the entire Milky Way sprawled across our own planetarium, and a falling star that lit up the sky for nearly 10 seconds. I could’ve ma...

A Look Inside the National Heirloom Exposition

Last week was my first-ever visit to the National Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa, and stepping onto the Sonoma County Fairgrounds was like stepping into a Garden Betty dream. Imagine booth after booth of produce porn, tables lined with late summer bounties, vendors serving up local, sustainable, and organic food, and a pop-up farm filled with fluffy sheep, alpacas, goats, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, and other fowl.

If you like to geek out on garden stuff, run an urban homestead or a full-scale...