Sage

When I host Thanksgiving, which is most years, I make my favorite Sausage, Apple and Cornbread Stuffing.  A labor of love but worth the effort.  One of the key ingredients is fresh sage.  Thanksgiving is often the last time I can cut any fresh herbs from the garden and usually the winter savory and sage hold up pretty well even after a frost or two.   This year both varieties of sage in my garden didn't even make it through the summer let alone the frost, so I had to buy it.  

When I opened up that small plastic container of sage on Thanksgiving morning the gorgeous aroma of this sage almost knocked me over.  I have never grown a variety of sage that smelled so good.  After using what I needed for the stuffing, I put the extra stems in small glass vases on my kitchen window ledge and left them.
 

They spent the holidays there growing roots and observing the hub-bub of family and friends in the kitchen.  The holidays over,  I had some time to pot them.  It felt good to garden for a little while, albeit indoors.  I ignored the several feet of snow (literally) covering my garden and pretended it was spring.  Now my little sage-lings have been clothed in earth and sent to vacation in our sunny guest room window.  I can't wait to see them in the garden, and with any luck they will join us for dinner next Thanksgiving!

For a great article about sage and how the first American "goodwives" used it for Thanksgiving, visit Willow Pond Farm's website, www.willowpondherbs.com/kitchen/thanksgiving/index.htm.