Like many people who love cooking, I keep a few herbs growing on the verandah.  Fresh herbs just always add that little hit of wonder in the dishes that they grace.  The ones that I keep have changed over the years, depending on what happens to like the microclimate that I’m in at the time, or what little gems have come my way, but I’ve always got something growing.  There is an ongoing battle for ownership of the chive pot between me and the cat; he is convinced that the chives are simply a spicy version of cat-grass, and I am convinced that he is a crazy chive-poaching menace, and much stamping of feet and occasional shouting ensues.  He leaves most of the other herbs alone, except the mint which suffers intensive sniffing.

The chives I am well pleased with.  They represent the sum of my gardening endeavours for the year 2001, a summer that I spent largely incapacitated and lying like a lox on the couch or, from time to time, in the St. Paul’s emergency room hopped up on morphine.  At one point, desperate to feel as though I were doing something normal, I clutched my bathrobe around me and staggered out onto the verandah with a handful of chive seeds that I had purchased yet failed to plant the year before.  I chucked my handful of seeds at the cobalt blue strawberry-pot that had once housed some English thyme, turned and lurched back in to the couch.  Exhausting. 

They grew.  The first year they were spindly enough that there was an inevitable amount of keel-over of the whisper-fine stems.  Even the cat was unimpressed.  Since I was far too unwell to attempt any cooking, I simply followed my program of ongoing neglect of the garden at large.  Remembering from my mother’s garden that chives get along pretty well without any help and not really caring too much whether or not they survived, I felt free to neglect them. 

The next Spring, feeling much better, I surveyed the damage that a year’s hard neglect had wrought and set about trimming, tidying, and in some cases throwing out old pots of flowers and herbs.  The rescued rosemary bush was in fine shape, needing only a haircut and a volunteer strawberry plant pulled out of its pot.  The smuggled-in-from-Crete oregano (a gift from the Marquise) was not only in good shape, it looked better than ever, although I noted that it had eaten most of its dirt and needed shoring up underneath.  The chives, however, were twice as thick around as before, and standing up proudly in the breeze.  There were a lot of them. 

True, the spindly stems from the year before hung limply brown against the pretty blue of the pot like a sad grass skirt, but the new shoots, about three inches tall at that point, were like resurrection.  I trimmed the dead stems away, and immediately harvested a few of the longer new stems for egg salad.  It was then, with the fresh oniony scent in the air, that the cat discovered the chives.  It’s been war ever since.   

I’ve tried growing parsley, to somewhat useful results.  In fact, there is a sad second-year growth in a pot on my plant-stand right now, but it looks like it’s trying to go to seed.  I’ve heard that parsley is one of those “tricky” herbs, and that it has a rhythm of its own – an old wives’ tale suggests that it “goes down seven times before it comes up right.”  I must be getting close, by now. 

On the other hand, parsley is cheap to buy, even in the inflated supermarkets, and almost always to be had year round.  Likewise cilantro.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it at even so high a price as a dollar per bunch (although the size of the bunch seems to vary with the season somewhat).  The good thing about a healthy bunch of parsley is that it lasts.  No, really, it does.  You just have to treat it right, and that starts with NOT leaving it sealed in the bag that it arrived in, deep in the back of the crisper. 

When you get home from buying your parsley bunch, undo the ties or elastics or whatever other bunching-binder they’ve employed, and wash the parsley (or cilantro) very thoroughly in several changes of cool water in the sink.  Allow to drain in your dishrack or handy collander, and pick out any nasty-looking stems and throw them away.  Even if you feel like you’re throwing out a lot of parsley, do it.  One rotten stem can be detrimental to the rest, and you’re not wasting it if it’s not in edible shape.  Throw them out or compost them.  Cilantro is often grown in a sort of peat matrix, so give it a good vigorous shake under water so to dislodge any dirt chunks, and repeat with fresh water until no more specks appear.  You’ll want to use the cilantro stems and even roots in your cooking, as they are not bitter like the stems of parsley and basil.  Once it’s cleaned and drained – dry those leaves!  Wet leaves will become rotten leaves, so blot them mercilessly with paper towel, or spin them in the salad spinner, or do whatever you have to do, but get them dry. 

Next, arrange the stems together and tie – loosely enough to not strangle or bruise the stems, snugly enough to keep them upright.  Trim a quarter of an inch off the bottom of your stems.  Place in a wide-bottomed glass or mug, and fill half-way with cool water.  Place a plastic vegetable bag (perhaps the one that you brought the parsley home in?) loosely over the top of the bunch to limit water evaporation and inhibit biological degredation, place in a safe, low-traffic region of your fridge, and reap the benefits of having fresh herbs, already washed and not a bit soggy or limp, at your disposal at a moment’s notice.  They will last for weeks, sometimes longer, if you prune out the older stems regularly.  It saves a huge amount of time to just reach under the bag, grab a handful of cilantro or parsley, twist it off, and boom! straight onto the chopping block, or into the salsa, or… 

Of course, for anything that you have a thriving potful of on your window box or in your garden, you don’t really need to go through these storage steps (although, it will save on the prewashing), at least not while that particular herb is in season. 

Having fresh herbs around encourages you to use them more when you are already cooking too, to go the extra mile in the flavour department.  Mexican food will taste more Mexican, with a little fresh cilantro.  Just about any stew or soup can be brightened by judicious use of fresh herbs, and the more variety you have to choose from, the better.  If the folks on Iron Chef couldn’t just whip out the fois gras and truffles anytime they wanted to add oomph to their dishes, they’d be knee-deep in fresh herbs.

June 2004