I\u2019ve bought a lot of plants\u2014and killed most of them. Only two hardy philodendrons have survived my tender loving care (and I water them with diluted coffee to thank them). So I\u2019m a little nervous about buying herbs in pots. I have loads of dried<\/em> herbs and spices, including weird ones like black salt\u2014which is actually pink, and never shows up in recipes. Ever. But I\u2019ve been avoiding fresh herbs.<\/p>\n Then, two weeks ago, I heard a TV chef blather on about how fresh herbs \u201ctransform boring and bland into bursting with flavor.\u201d It was time. I bought four potted herbs\u2014basil, thyme, curly parsley and flat leaf parsley. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve discovered:<\/p>\n 1. Herbs want to die.<\/strong> Herbs are not like philodendrons\u2014a weekly coffee shower is not enough to keep them happy. Every morning\u2014every single morning<\/em>\u2014I find my herbs dangling over the sides of their pots, pale, lifeless and gasping for water. Turns out if you don\u2019t water herbs daily, they commit suicide. Yes, they\u2019re Green Drama Queens.<\/p>\n 2. Pruning is an art. I\u2019m not good at art.<\/strong> When I needed fresh basil, I pulled off the biggest leaves close to the soil, leaving the smaller, higher-up leaves so they could grow. Makes sense, right? Don\u2019t be silly. Apparently, basil is only happy if you chop off the leaves at the top. Since I angered my basil by not<\/em> decapitating it, the stems grew freakishly long and straight\u2014they looked like green pencils topped with leafy little hats.<\/p>\n 3. Flat leaf parsley is stupid.<\/strong> My curly parsley just sat there, patiently, waiting to be used as a garnish and then thrown out. Not the flat leaf parsley. No, my flat leaf parsley shot up twice as tall as the basil, then each skinny stalk\u2014weighted down by the big tuft of leaves at its tip\u2014crashed face-first into the dirt. Go home, parsley, you\u2019re drunk.<\/p>\n 4. Bouquet garni should be left to the professionals.<\/strong> I figured I\u2019d better start using my herbs before they died. So I tied a bunch of them together with string (a mess called bouquet garni) and tossed them into a stew. Two hours later, I had a layer of stems and leaves floating on the surface of the stew, and a hunk of wet string stuck to a piece of beef. Yum.<\/p>\n The TV chef had said cooking with fresh herbs requires savoir faire. I now realize savoir faire is Latin for \u201ca skill I don\u2019t have.\u201d I\u2019m going back to my dried spices. There must be some recipe out there that uses black salt. The pink kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve bought a lot of plants\u2014and killed most of them. Only two hardy philodendrons have survived my tender loving care (and I water them with diluted coffee to thank them). So I\u2019m a little nervous about buying herbs in pots. I have loads of dried herbs and spices, including weird ones like black salt\u2014which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}