blondie rose honey

blondie ingredients

blondie dollops

blondie smoothed ready to bake

blondie bars

Recently, my relationship with sadness has been changing. When it first came to me it was all about me and the circumstances of my life, my disappointments, my personal heartaches. My shift relates to the endless horrors and tragedies in the world that brings a whole different level of sad. My heart aches for other people all around the world and all their suffering that I hear about seemingly every single day.

Rumi said “Come out here where the roses have opened. Let soul and world meet.”

This so speaks the power in roses. Heart and soul and help for us all.

Roses lend themselves to baking magically because they add interest, fragrance, and mix well with many other baking ingredients like chocolate, honey, lemon, cream, and berries. An especially easy way to incorporate dried rose petals is by first preparing them as honey.

Honey is a beautiful sweetener for herbal syrups because it is in itself medicinal. Natural honey, not ultra-filtered, has anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory benefits. I gravitate to using less honey: most syrup recipes call for a 1:1 ratio of sweetener and concentrated liquid, so that would mean adding 2 cups honey to 2 cups of concentrated rose tea. I don’t think that is necessary and that you create a perfect tasting syrup that’s just a little less sweet, it doesn’t change the medicinal aspect of the syrup at all.

Rose honey keeps well and having it around facilitates adding a bit of warming brightness anywhere you would use honey. My two favorites are either add a bit to some cold sparkling water with a squirt of lemon or lime and second dollop a spoonful into plain whole milk, grass-fed yogurt. I love this kind of yogurt so much, its creaminess feels comforting alone but the addition of rose honey elevates it even further. I would rather have this than almost any dessert except maybe for chocolate cake with chocolate icing. And on that note, its a given that roses and chocolate go together, which is why turning it into a gooey chocolate fudge sauce for these blondies is so perfect.

peace and love herb blend

preparing peace and love tea

peace and love tea

Maybe it’s the times. I hear it said a lot, these are trying times we are living in and I wonder about all the history before us and suffering. It’s impossible to not be aware of horror, nightmare, sadness – so many people all over the world are facing. I wish I could bottle up all the peace, comfort and light that I feel when I drink this tea and send it out to them, everyone. I wish there was a way to help.

If you need some comforting, please make this tea. If you need the herbs to make it with, tell me – I will send you them.

truffles for the memory

truffle ingredients

rosemary remembrance truffles

bite sized delicious

Perhaps.

Shakespeare, Hamlet
Act 4, Scene 5
Ophelia: There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that is for thoughts… There’s fennel for you, and columbines, there’s rue for you and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end. – (sings) “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy”

Ophelia’s rambling, somewhat confused speech refers to symbolic flower associations all related to the circumstances surrounding her father’s death. She begins with rosemary it seems, not for memories, but because she knows that it along with the other plants she mentions help to relieve pain of the heart. Her reference to remembrance translates to an English funeral tradition where those grieving laid rosemary bunches onto their loved one’s coffins as a symbol that they would never forget.

I’m not sure how the idea that rosemary will help with memory retention or recall became so intertwined with this quote, but tradition and modern science support it. Rosemary’s chemical constituents increase the uptake of cellular oxygen in the brain to support and stimulate memory. Herbalists know it as a vital formula ingredient for mental clarity.

I invite you to do your own experiment. You can easily make these truffles; the hardest part is collecting the herb powders. I promise the research will also be delicious.

Last, as I write this, the current world chaos and constant tragedy pull my heart to sadness over and over. I identify with Ophelia’s madness, despair, and grief. I’m not sure what else there is to say.

gluten free rose chocolate chips

rose petals

rose petal tincture

inside a cookie

plates of cookies

rose hazelnut chocolate chip cookies

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Granted, sometimes a recipe needs work. When I mixed together the first batter for these cookies I used almond flour and coconut sugar. I kept thinking that it looked too wet and dark but I hoped that after a short time in the refrigerator, it would bake up fine. As I carried the covered bowl of batter to the refrigerator, I became distracted with something I left on the counter and put the batter bowl down quickly on top of the washing machine, which was churning my Sunday laundry. Note: never do this. In a split second the glass bowl of batter was face down on the floor, shattered in millions of pieces, batter splashed everywhere. I admit, I began to cry as I cleaned it up. After about an hour collecting myself, I began again and in the end I believe it was divine intervention for the first was a batter that should not have been baked. The new one looked much better using organic granulated sugar and hazelnut flour (I did not have almond flour left). The final result these extremely delicate but totally scrumptious chocolate chip morsels, totally gluten-free. Perhaps an egg would have helped them to hold together and I plan to try them that way another day. For now, my children all approved, and that works for me just fine. Possibly the brightening spirits rose petals worked their magic.