Parsely, sage, etc. etc.

Once a week I make my way to a gravel alley on the edge of downtown Bend. It's not as seedy as it sounds. Downtown Bend is a cute, touristy place; the alley I visit is in an area that's also cute (but not touristy): it's quiet, shady, filled with little millworker-built houses. Some of the houses have been converted to shops. This particular alley runs behind what is now a nonprofit and a women's clinic. Weedy flowers and shrubs grow in the dirt there — and underneath one of the currant bushes, during the growing season, sit a couple of coolers.

The coolers hold my eggs and vegetables. Well, not just mine. The eggs and veggies come from Gigi, who has a farm east of town. She stops by the alleyway once a week with overflowing canvas bags, and then throughout the day we CSA members open the coolers to exchange an empty bag for a full one.

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So once a week I unload a bag of just-picked vegetables onto my kitchen counter, getting dirt everywhere and grinning, because just-picked vegetables make me happy. I give the guinea pigs carrot tops and radish tops and onion tops and whatever else I won't eat and then I refrigerate the rest — everything except the herbs. Gigi grows lots of herbs: parsely, sage, basil, thyme, tarragon, oregano, fennel, rosemary. I couldn't possibly use them all in a week, so I dry them. It's easy to do in this climate. The small-leafed herbs will dry in two days just sitting on the counter, believe it or not. Usually, though, I bunch them with a twist-tie and hang them from the cabinet handles. My husband doesn't like this method — he opens a cabinet to get a coffee cup or a glass and, damn!, knocks down a sprig of herbs — but it works well, and I feel so Little-House-on-the-Prairie-ish with these herbs hanging every-which-way!

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Now I recommend you read Charlotte Freeman's post at Bookslut, which is about, I think, the art of homemaking. It's also about cooking deliciously despite being broke.