3 Cheers for Chives

Chives are a popular and easy herb to grow in the garden or in containers in your kitchen. The delicate savor of onion in chopped chives is commonly combined with sour cream and cream cheese or sprinkled over dishes as a mild garnish. Garlic or Chinese chives are a more pungent relative with slightly taller, broader leaves and an unmistakable garlic note in their taste. Members of the Allium family, chives are perennials, sprouting new shoots every spring. They are fairly cold hardy; I can usually find my clumps of chives green and thriving from early March until a hard freeze in December. Right now little pinkish purple puffs of flowers are blooming from my chive clump. I like to snip them for small onion scented bouquets leaving a few outside for the bees and for later seed. Garlic chives flower later, taller in loose white fireworks forms.

Chives are best freshly picked. Personally, I love covering a bagel with cream cheese and chives, chopping a bunch to go over boiled potatoes or in potato salad or sprinkling them over a cheesy omelet. Making chive butter to freeze is a great way to store chives or other herbs that don't taste the same dried.

Chive Butter

1 stick butter (8Tbsp)
3-4 Tbsp chopped chives

Let butter sit at room temperature until soft and easy to work. Mix with herbs in a small bowl until well blended. Spoon onto wax paper and remold into a stick shape. Wrap tightly and freeze. Garlic and dill are also fabulous to use for an herb butter!

Add a tablespoon or two of chive butter to the pan before frying fish or to start a simple sauce. A little herbed butter melted and tossed with steamed vegetables is truly delightful.

The Groaning Board

Another Thanksgiving, the great American feast, has come and gone again. Last year we got together with friends, each bringing a dish to a scenic house in the woods with a roaring fire. This year we had a nice little one at home, a turkey roasted with herbs fresh from the garden. My garden isn't large enough to provide much more than herbs and carrots for the table on turkey day. I have to visit the greater garden of the farmer's market and even the grocery store. Now that the leftovers are stored and dishes washed I have some time to share a few of my thoughts from this last week about feasting and what it has meant to humans through the ages.

The myth of the first Thanksgiving is as deeply ingrained in our culture as the myth surrounding those colonists who found their way to Plymouth, Massachusetts. For the pilgrims a day of thanksgiving meant giving thanks to god, usually through fasting and prayer, only rarely followed by a feast. After the colonies of New England grew, public holidays or days of thanksgiving were declared in honor of battle victories, those back home across the sea and those won against Native Americans. What is often taken as the first thanksgiving was part of a period of peaceful gestures by one tribe of Native Americans seeking an alliance with the early settlers, sharing food in the spirit of peace and a demonstration of goodwill towards new friends. It is an ancient action full of grace and hope, symbolic of bringing together new members of a family by sharing a meal. This generous spirit is what we tend to focus on today when we gather around a heaped and groaning table in late November.

But our modern Thanksgiving is more than a modest and symbolic meal, the volume of food on the table and the late fall timing always make me think of pagan harvest festivals. I think of other feasts too; the rugged Greeks in Homer's Odyssey, slaughtering beeves and offering wine to the gods, the Romans lounging in great halls around tables of decadence, and kings and queens feasting in drafty castles on boar taken from the surrounding forest. There are thousands more, feasts going back further than literature and known history.

Here we are in the twenty-first century gorging on turkey then digesting all afternoon in front of an enormous television, still gathered together for the feast.

Sage Advice

Now that we've finally had a good frost, the garden is looking a little barren. The root vegetables are still safe, sleeping in their dark beds until called in for supper. All those tender green shoots that had been lingering have suddenly withered and shriveled, wiped out overnight by the hard hand of a killing frost. What remains is a sobering scene, dried husks and brown twiggy masses that will remain until spring. Luckily there are still a few survivors, wisps of green which may endure the winter, the hardier herbs: savory, rosemary, thyme, chives and sage.


Herbs are one of my most satisfying gardening experiences. Most common herbs hail from the Mediterranean and will flourish in poor soil and a harsh, dry climate, making them fantastically easy to grow. Most do not grow very large and take well to growing in pots and window boxes. Salvia Officinalis or common sage has a rich history as a culinary and medicinal herb. A must to grow in the cook's garden, its distinctive flavor pairs exceptionally well with fatty meats and poultry. Purple, gold and tricolor sage varieties can make a colorful mix in the garden, but do not vary much in taste. We use sage when grilling pork chops in the summer, but late fall and winter is when sage really takes the main stage in the kitchen. A handful of sage and thyme stuffed in turkey or chicken before roasting makes a deliciously simple center of a meal. Musky sage bunches can add savor to any cut of pork and are essential to sausage. What would Thanksgiving stuffing be without sage?

I love stuffing! Here's one of my takes on a classic:

Cranberry Potato Bread Stuffing

1 Pkg. (12oz.)
Martin's Famous Potatobred Soft Stuffing Cubes (or other bread cubes)
2 T Butter
1-2 cups hot chicken broth
1 cup dried cranberries
1 large yellow onion, chopped (1 1/4c)
4-6 celery stalks, chopped (1 1/4c)
2 tsp fresh sage (1 tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh thyme (1/2 tsp dried)
1 tsp salt (kosher if possible)
1/2 tsp pepper (freshly ground is best)

Soak dried cranberries in 1 cup hot chicken broth for about 15 minutes (while you chop the onions, celery and herbs). Melt butter in a large skillet. Saute onions and celery until translucent and tender, not brown. Add herbs, seasonings, cranberries and soaking broth. Stir, then add bread cubes. You may need a little more broth to moisten bread cubes. Stir over medium heat until well mixed. Let cool before stuffing, will fill a 10-12lb turkey.

Add a second cup of broth for a moist dressing to bake separately in a buttered casserole dish, 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until the top begins to brown.