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Hi Effie,

It's good to hear from you. Thanks for the quote from Shelly. After being exposed to the benefits of chamomile a few years ago, I planted some Roman Chamomile in a bed in my vegetable garden. That stuff took off and filled the bed and flowered profusely and I felt like a master gardener. This was until I noticed that it grew out of its bed and into the paths and into the other beds . . . and, I realized this is a real weed of a plant. I started pulling it and pulling it. Then I broke one of my gardening rules and filled up my sprayer with a non selective herbicide and sprayed it! It took me a total of three years to eradicate this. After reading your post, and noticing a Chamomile plant back behind my garden that is up this spring (probably from a stray seed) I am thinking about scooping this up and trying some Chamomile in a container this year to get the flowers hopefully without it trying to take over my backyard like last time. :0)

Speaking of "other delights," I have become interested in cooking this past year. My wife has always liked the Food Network. In the past I have wondered why anyone would want to watch shows where all folks do is cook food. I think it occurred to me that there are starving people in the world and how can we have a hobby like cooking and so on . . . But, I watched a few shows last year and became interested. Maybe my newfound interest in grilling and smoking food outside kind of led into this. But, after watching a show about blackened swordfish, I went out an picked up a cast iron skillet and some swordfish and actually made something that was very good! It was all over after this, from there I collected just about every regular pan and pot and dutch oven that Lodge Manufacturing makes and I started trying different cast iron recipes. Since then I have been learning about cutlery and high quality tri-clad cookware and so on and am collecting these things. I watch the Food Network now from the viewpoint of a student. I feel like I am learning much in a short time. I think with my new interest in cooking I will go nuts this year planting different herbs in my garden to use fresh and to dry for next winter.

I met a Greek lady in my area who grows Greek Basil and sells it each year at her church. I don't know what is different about Greek Basil as opposed to any other Basil. I guess the leaves look a little smaller. But, I know the one plant that I got from here a couple years ago grew like mad . . . and I remember it was so vigorous other plants started growing from this one around this one plant. I'm not really sure how that happened actually. But, I hope to pick up a few plants from her this year.

One chef on the Food Network is named Bobby Flay. He said something interesting the other day. He said when he cooks, he likes to cook simply and he doesn't use anything in his dishes unless he can taste it. He was saying don't just put something in a dish because you think it should be there; but, if you do use a particular herb, spice, flavor, or whatever you should be able to taste it. He says, if he uses it he wants to be able to taste it. This sounds right to me and I think I have learned already at this early stage of cooking that most of the time the simpler something is the better. For example, I made some things on the grill last night and my wife made a cold cabbage salad to go with it. she sliced and shredded the cabbage very fine and put it in a bowl. No big deal right? Then to this she added some red onion bits, a miniscule amount of sesame oil, grated ginger, olive oil, and salt. This took her about two minutes. I didn't think this was going to be anything all that great . . . but, this crazy stuff was something special! We had this with chicken and steak and it was really good even though there was nothing to it. I'm not even a big fan of cabbage, but good stuff. I guess I am a fan now. I think this mix she made could be really good on different kinds of meat and fish sandwiches . . . so simple and so good.

I wonder if you have any comments about cooking in terms of being able to taste whatever you use (or not using it). As well I wonder what you think about using herbs in simple ways as opposed to complex dishes and styles of cooking.

There is another show on this network called "Iron Chef." This a competition show between chefs. There is one regular chef on this show who is Greek named Cat Cora and another who is 1/2 Greek. I think I am seeing from these two that more than not, Greek cooking is simple and clean cooking--not complex.