fairy presents and a recipe

I got the most beautiful sweet fairy package in the mail from Susun Weed (and staff) with stickers on the outside that say "make tea not war" and little trillium stickers that say thank you! and Congratulations! on them. And I get to order books and cds as part of my course. I get to pick the cds and four of the books and then 4 books come with it. And I got the coursebook for the ABC of herbalism, which is structured as, of course, the abc's. And I received in the mail the herbal chart to hang on my wall from herbmentor.com that has common herbs, their actions, latin and family names, parts used and preparations best employed (poultice, tincture, tea, salve, etc). And we went this morning and harvested fresh nettles! I brought a basket I wove as an offering and we sang them a song as we harvested them. We'll eat them tonight on pizza- i am going to make a sourdough rye crust to rise while i work today. And then I want to make the nettle beer. But I don't think we have enough for that, I read on one of the recipes that we need 10 pounds! (here are some links to recipes for nettle beer- celtic recipes, selfsufficientish, the green chronicle ) So, Friday when we go back to Grosskrotzenburg I'll harvest more of them and dandelion leaves and or flowers. It was so beautiful to be in the forest, I have to find where I can get to some around here on foot, or at least not too far away on the train. I think these two plants, Nettle (Urtica Dioica) and Dandelion (Taraxacum Officianale)- through wild crafting leaves, flowers, seeds or roots, making medicines, wine, beer, yarn from the fibers, drying, cooking, etc. will keep me busy for the year. The other plants I want to study I will purchase and then I can add another plant or two next year to my wildcrafting repertoire. We start the ABC course with Aloe, so I need to find an aloe plant to buy.

And here is what I made for lunch today, it's a keeper:

Apple Endive salad

Slice the following thinly
3 endive (in german they are chicoree, which we call endive, the little, smooth, slightly fuzzy white/yellow heads of expensive salad green)
3 small potatoes, cooked
1 apple

leaves of green salad,torn into bite size pieces
100g of old gouda, grated
dressing: salt, pepper, smoked salt, olive oil, lemon juice, tarragon vinegar

Toss it all together and eat. serves two. Unfortunately again we ate it too fast to take a picture. I usually remeber only at about the last mouth full.

I'll try to remember to take a picture of the nettle pizza tonight before we eat it!