Herbal Beginnings, Herbal Choices, Herbal Passions and Herbal Blessings! An Herbal Gift for Giving!

Well, I had to give it away in the title of my post!  It isn't about my life in herbs!  I'm going to try and give you some gift choices for the upcoming holiday season.  By all means, if you have an herb shop or herb farm in your vicinity and they are open for holiday shopping, please patronize them!  I have a bunch of links on my home page and maybe they will do mail order if they aren't around the corner from you.  Remember to patronize the small businesses.

I have been wanting to do a post about the four books in an herbal series by herb farm owner extraordinaire, Carolee Snyder.  Her herb business is called Carolee's Herb Farm in Hartford City, Indiana.  The series is all about the adventures of Callie Gardener.  Each of the four books has twelve monthly chapters.  At the end of each chapter, Carolee talks about an herb of the month.  The last chapter of each book has herbal recipes for four different courses.  Herbal Beginnings has appetizers and cocktails, Herbal Choices has soups and salads, Herbal Passions has entrees, side dishes and other delights and Herbal Blessings has desserts and other great recipes.

I loved each of these books for different reasons.  Herbal Beginnings gives Callie the courage to start her own herb business after being stood up by her fiance.  The twists and turns of her life and all of those prospective boyfriends and her beloved lab, Wicca, who is almost human makes this a wonderful first chapter to her extremely busy life on the herb farm.  Then to add on top of that herb education and recipes!  It is a real winner!  We especially loved the pesto stuffed eggs and lavender pizza recipes.  I look forward to trying more of the recipes in the coming months.

In Herbal Choices, Callie's adventures continue with marriage possibilities, boyfriends, girlfriends, Wicca and herb farm adventures in its second season.  Twelve different herbs to learn about and soup and salad recipes that I'm eager to try.

Herbal Passions, continues Callie's adventures in the Joyful Heart Farm, her tryouts of herbal recipes with her girls' nights out, old and new loves, lots of surprises and of course, herbs and entree, side dishes and other delights.

Herbal Blessings is my favorite and the final book of this series.  It is Callie's fourth year in business.  I don't want to give too much away but it is an exciting time for Callie.  Carolee asked if she could use my pineapple sage jelly recipe and so you will not only get my recipe, but lots of herbal dessert ideas in this final chapter of her series.

So I hope I have started your gift giving thoughts with some herbal ones.  Carolee not only has these books but many other choices for herbal gifts, including t-shirts and sweatshirts with herbal themes.  She does do mail order for everything, but plants.

It is a glorious day in the 'Burgh.  Hope you are out enjoying your herb garden.  Talk to you later.