Being fascinated with herbs and their many uses for as long as I can remember, I have grown and used many of them in cooking since I was a teenager. A friend introduced me to Mother Earth News when I was 15 or 16. After reading about organic gardening, I became especially interested in various herbs and their uses. I continued to read and do research over the years and began to make teas from many of them. Eventually I added wild herbs and flowers to my collection.
My first tea was peppermint. It settled a belly ache and our doctor said it was safe for my first baby Charles, who was colicky for quite some time. He was eventually found to be lactose intolerant. Charles will be 26 as of July and still drinks my mint tea. He joined the Navy when he was 18. Last time he was deployed I asked what he would like me to send him. The only thing he wanted was my mint tea and chocolate mint which I also started making during his childhood years.
From the time my youngest son, Chris was a baby he would not swallow pills and would spit out any liquid medicine I gave him. He would, however, drink mint tea. My grandmother used dandelions and was pretty much never sick, so I did research on them. Apparently, it has antibiotic properties. So, I began adding it to my mint tea whenever he was sick. He could have the worst flu ever and would only be sick enough to stay down for one day. He has drunk that tea every time he gets sick for 22 years now. Evan as an adult Chris will come in and say “Mom I am so sick; would you make me some of that tea?
As a child we lived out in the country for short periods of time. My dad would take us on walks or bicycle rides on Sunday afternoons. We often picked berries along the way, to take home and eat the next morning for breakfast. At some point he showed how to pull out the petals of a red clover flower and suck the liquid out of them. It was sweet and we began doing that anytime we saw red cover. This memory gave me an idea and I tried adding it to the mint tea. The tea was not sweet enough for my youngest and I really try to avoid sugar when possible. Red clover was a hit! Both boys loved it. Thus began my journey into foraging.