Lavender Sugar Cookies

I wanted to make something special for an event at the store and I wanted it to be simple.
Simple = sugar cookies + lavender = Special
I tried the recipe once to make sure they would be "good enough" for the art opening and they were.
I made them again to everyone's delight including the guest of honor, our artist of the month Trish Grantham, who has turned into our featured artist for the past 2-3 months. She keeps on painting and folks keep on buying it.
Yay! Supporting local art is a deeply political and spiritual act. Investing in art is Righteous.
We also really love that when she brings in new art, she stays and moves everything around so everything is all freshy-fresh.

It's been awhile, but here's the recipe:

Lavender Sugar Cookies

I make these entirely in the food processor

1 heaping tablespoon dried lavender in food processor
with 3/4 C organic brownish sugar or regular brown sugar,
add a stick of soft butter, mix well.
add an egg, 2 tsp vanilla extract.
blend,
then add 1.5 C flour, 1/2tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda. mix, not too much.
scoop dough by the teaspoon,
roll into little balls by hand,
roll in vanilla sugar (or any sugar)
don't flatten,
I know you'll want to, but don't.
Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 5-7 minutes.
don't let them brown.

if you don't have a food processor, blend the lavender and sugar in a mortar & pestle or a coffee grinder, then proceed how you would with any other cookie recipe.
They will be fragrant and lovely and should stay soft for days.
They are so dreamy!
enjoy.

Rose Harvest & Conserve of Roses

I was at a potluck dinner with my family last evening and took a little tour around the amazing garden that my friend Joel tends. He wanted me to identify a few weeds, it was of course my pleasure as I love the weeds. One of them was a lemony sorrel that we nibbled. As we continued around the yard and gardens I found myself enamored by all the roses. One of them was an enormous climbing rose from a mountain house of my past that is still close to my heart. It had been transplanted a few years back and is absolutely magnificent.

As we wandered I was listening to my guide tell about the cippolina onions, the fava beans and all the fabulous plantings, but my mind was on the roses. After we rounded the house leaving most of the vast gardens behind, we came upon even more roses.

I asked if I could harvest some of them. “Of course” he said.

As I was walking into the house to get something to harvest them into, I found my oldest daughter and three of her friends chatting away on the porch swing. “Come with me” I said. I think they thought I was going to have them set the table or some other unwanted chore, but they did follow. I grabbed a paper grocery bag and took them to the largest rose bush, the climber.

Two of the girls are exchange students so I was a bit concerned about the language barrier, but with my first sentence I realized they could understand me perfectly. “Find the yummiest looking rose you can. One you would want to eat if it were candy or a piece of fruit.” They looked at each other and giggled.

Once they all knew what they were looking for (yumminess) I had them each harvest* 15 roses from the climbing rose, then one each of the big roses from the fancier varieties.

It was such an amazing and timeless image of these young girls, young women really, harvesting these flowers of love on this last day of May. The lyrical cadence of their voices moving together in harmony was like heaven. I thought for a moment of getting my camera, but let the thought go just as quickly. The moment would have been lost if any external attention was brought to it.

They stood together after finishing their task amongst the roses for some time. Whether it was in the teenage distraction or the scent of the roses making them linger, I don’t know, but for me (observing discreetly from a distance), it was a golden moment and perhaps one that will be remembered by them as well.

"Their lips were four red roses
on a stalk."
~ William Shakespeare

Today I awoke to the responsibility of preserving the rose petals.

I decided to try something new.

I found several old fashioned recipes for things like rose-petal soup, rose-petal scones, rose jelly and the like.

I wanted something that would be for use later in the year when the roses are not at their peak. I wanted to preserve the magic somehow.

Jelly seemed like an ok idea, except that I didn’t have any lemons and wanted to make something with what was in the house already.

I settled on taking inspiration from some medieval recipes.

This is my version of Rose Conserve:

Harvest unsprayed fragrant roses, remove the petals, let wilt overnight.

Into a glass jar pour a layer of organic cane sugar then a layer of rose petals.

Do this several times ending with sugar.

Simple. I know. The real beauty for me is the harvesting, the sorting and the smelling. I don't mind a complicated recipe now and again, but I didn't want to cook or cut or grind these. I wanted them to stay as they were.

I imagine a couple of things may happen with the sugared roses.

One is that the water in the roses will mingle with the sugar and melt it down creating interesting and fragrant syrup.

The other more hopeful outcome is that the roses will preserve between the layers of sugar and the moisture will all wick to the top and I can pour this off and use it in another recipe. (I won’t know what kind of recipe until I taste the liquid.)

The other possibility is that it will come to naught, but in any case my house smells like heaven.

For now enjoy the pictures and I’ll keep you updated with the progress.

Touch your cheek to the cheek of sugar.
Get the taste of it. Give perfume to it.
Try to alleviate the pain of separation
With the help of sugar.
Once you become the conserve of roses,
You are food for the Soul,
Light for the eyes...
When I say "conserve of roses,"
I mean the Grace of God and our existence.

Rumi

*With the blossom of the flower just kissing your palm, wrap your fingers towards the base of the flower and with your thumb and fingers pinch off the flower cleanly at its base, leaving the blossom in your palm. Then toss it gently in the bag.

Peacock Feather Necklace

We love this necklace!
It's a purple agate with sterling rivets to attach the sterling silver chain. The peacock feather is affixed to more rivets securing it to the agate.
This is made here in Portland, Oregon by the lovely artists at small things designs newest venture Stone & Honey. We always have a few of the honeycomb necklaces available as well. We currently have this large purple agate necklace and a smaller green agate with a different feather and a small honey colored one with honeycomb on it.
Sadie (pictured) has been eyeing this one and finally tried it on. Doesn't it look great with her green tank?
Each piece is completely unique, hand made and one of a kind.

Herbal Iced Tea - sage, dandelion, thyme & honey

We had some friends over for dinner a few days ago and I wanted something for the kids to drink that wasn't soda.
Not that I'm opposed to the occasional sugar indulgence, but the last time we allowed soda while having a bunch of kids over, we were finding soda cans everywhere for days.
With iced tea, even if it's yummy, it does not encourage overindulgence the way a fridge stocked with all natural Orange Cream Soda does.
Honestly, it all began with the dandelion syrup that I had begun earlier in the day that got neglected as I prepared dinner.
Earlier in the day when I had gone out to check on the chickens I saw, to my delight, some fully blooming dandelions. I picked about 2 cups of the tops and put them in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. As they cook, the flowers reduce down and then the water does as well.

This was as far as I got. (If you want to continue on with making the syrup, you add sugar and boil, then pour over pancakes, ice cream etc. I will post the exactness of the recipe soonish.)

So I had about 2 cups of strong dandelion brew and I wanted iced tea. hmmm. Would children-who-do-not-belong-to me drink this?
I went back out and harvested garden sage and a small handful of thyme
I put the sage and thyme in a heat proof glass vessel and poured boiling water (24oz) over them, put a cover on it and let it sit for about 20 minutes. I wanted it to be lightly sweetened, so I poured (8oz) boiling water into the mostly empty honey jar that had crystallized honey lining the inside of the jar. The boiling water melted it down as I stirred and scraped down the sides to help it along.
I filled a metal pitcher with ice and poured the strained dandelion brew, the tea of thyme and sage and the melty honey sweetness all together.
It was surprising even to me in it's yumminess.
It was so good.
The children loved it as did the adults.
Please note that they were offered iced tea, not dandelion-sage-thyme iced tea.
I have learned my lesson on that one again and again. Once after making muffins for my girls and having them deemed "the best muffins ever" I took a risk and told them they had beets in them, they felt so betrayed and will now ask whenever presented with a chocolate muffin "are there beets in it?"
oh well.
"Would you like some iced tea?"
xo

Guest Blog from Julia Montes

Upon opening the door into Flora, lovely high notes of rose rush over me, causing a smile to stretch across my face.

I know exactly what that means- Jewelie is making perfume today.

Sure enough, Jewelie is standing behind the counter holding the tiniest beaker I’ve ever seen and mixing its contents with a look of absolute concentration. I have barely made it through the door before she beckons me over. “Smell this,” she insists and holds a mixing stick out for me to sniff as I approach the counter. I take one full cleansing breath before leaning over to experience the scent she has just created. Pulling back, I wait a moment before responding, savoring the scent the way one does when experiencing the first taste of fine wine or expensive chocolate. Once again, Jewelie has blown me away with her ability to blend seemingly opposing scents into a magical concoction. The perfume is lovely- woodsy, with hints of citrus. Jewelie waits for my response but I can’t actually say anything, I simply smile and nod my head in admiring approval.

Extra Sensual Perception

Extra Sensory Perception
"extra special powers"
There's a Japanese girl band that sings this amazing song, called ESP and upon searching it out, I found that apparently lots of people have songs about ESP.

My older daughter was in class last year and a teacher asked the students if they knew what ESP stood for and my daughter very confidently said "extra special powers".
Everyone stared at her like she must be joking and then she realized that her words did not align with the group. She came home a bit embarrassed and asked about it.
It's just the way that her mind rearranged the words to the Shonen Knife song that she's been
singing along with since she was a little girl.
And because of that, it's how we've always referred to ESP at our house.

I've been thinking about the way in which people perceive things, the way that I perceive things may not be the same as the way you do, but that does not mean that what one person sees/hears/senses makes the other person's perception wrong.
The other day as I was driving I had a sense that we had driven ahead a few blocks and had re-wound, if you will, and started over. I asked my older daughter who was in the front seat with me "were we just up ahead at the next light and came back here to start over?" She paused, thought about it and said, "that's not how it seemed to me". She, as my daughter is open to the possibility that reality is all about perception and that it was possible, if not improbable that it was a reality. Time is not linear. Space is not finite. We can intellectualize it, but the belief in ourselves, the trust we allow ourselves to experience things outside of normal perceived acceptable reality is a leap of faith. One must have courage to see things that others do not. One must have faith in life and belief in oneself to see outside an agreed upon limited reality.

I rarely end up where I set out, but these are the words that want to be written.

I was intending to write about the way in which our senses guide us, how each of us is ruled by certain senses. Some of us use our sense of sight, or touch to guide us through life. I know a girl who smells everything before she eats it and smells every ingredient before she cooks. I saw someone the other day in a clothing store who touched every single item she passed.
Some people need eye contact or they cannot have a conversation.
Our basic needs are sensual
sen·su·al
Etymology:
Middle English, from Late Latin sensualis, from Latin sensus sense
Date:15th century
Really, sensuality is just about connecting with our senses and yet, our culture has demonized our most basic human needs; to connect and feel, to see and touch, to taste and smell and so on.
1: relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite :
a: devoted to or preoccupied with the senses or appetites
b: voluptuous c: deficient in moral, spiritual, or intellectual interests : worldly; especially : irreligious (Irreligious? what? being religious means having no sense?
this makes no sense.)

I feel like Oblio in the Pointless Forest.

What is your primary sense? Your secondary sense? What sense do you feel disconnected to?

As a perfumer I like to blow open olfactory sense perception.
To allow people to have their minds blown wide open through their sense of smell. You can never be the same once you've connected to your deep, ancient, visceral connection to the world of scent.
Julia, my assistant and many of our customers have never liked the scent of rose oil, until they've experienced one of the true Rose Ottos or absolutes that we have at the store. Now Rose is the favorite, the dream, the ideal. The sensual connection to something from the past and maybe not even their own past.

What is your favorite smell?

A dear friend of mine sent me one of these get to know you better e-mail disasters and because as I said she is dear to me I sent it back to her (only her, no more forwards). One of the questions was: What is your favorite smell? I knew right away my answer, but had to decide how honest I would be and tried to come up with a "better" answer. I love Roses in the rain, I love the way the sidewalk smells after a rain, I love the smell of band-aids, I love the smell of old books, I love the smell of puppies, I love the smell of babies necks, I could go on and on. Obviously smell is one of primary sensual connections.
The real answer is that I love the way my loved ones smell, when unadorned by deodorants and washes. I love real people smell.
My friend, the forwarder, replied that she hadn't thought of it, but that was really her favorite scent as well.
I remember when my younger daughter at age 10 had come home and said that someone had suggested she use deodorant and would I buy her some. It was hard for me to imagine my baby girl needing to mask her self in this way and so we talked about it and she said that the person had said she had "body odor" - she squinched her nose up while repeating the words as it must have been modeled to her. I said yes, you do have body odor, it's a body, everything has an odor, it's a smell, not a poison.
We are asked to look and smell the same, to be nice, to be fine and we are expected to mask our own real scent.
I'm sorry, but it's not ok with me.
I did buy her some low scent organic deodorant and if she wears it that's up to her, but I like the way my friends and family smell au natural.
We're hard-wired to smell anger and love, desire and distrust. It's part of the ESP picture, the masking of scents is a way for us to get mixed messages, for us to be confused by false information to not trust our instincts.
Let's do away with so much scented laundry detergent, dish soap, room fresheners, deodorants, chemical perfumes.
We have to use other cues, to open our senses to fully live in our own skin, to see the world. To be in the world.

Tonight Julia and I went out to Toro Bravo for dinner and I speak for both of us when I say that our taste buds were blown open. We ordered many amazing little plates to share, but the bacon wrapped, blue cheese stuffed figs were transcendent. Julia said it was the best thing she had ever put in her mouth. We had a hard time considering anything else that could follow such a taste. We sat in awe of the simplicity and complexity of it for some time before deciding that we could have a drink of Sangria as a transition to the next plate.

While I was enjoying delightful food and conversation I checked out those around me, took in what I could of their story, I opened my senses to what they were telling me, telling everyone around them. With their body language, the food they chose, the colors they wear, the companions they are with, their voices and all the minutia of human-ness. Being perceptive is a drinking in of the world, a tasting, a smelling, a hearing.

Go ahead, be psychic, you already are, just pay attention, drink it in and enjoy your life.

xo

World Tea Expo

First of all, I know this sounds very exotic and beautiful and aromatic, however, the Expo was in Las Vegas and I was soooo sick.
I will write another post all about the illness and my treatment, stay posted.

We went to the tea expo thinking and hoping we would find the coolest teapots & cups, the most amazing lines of boxed & bagged teas and herb & tea infused chocolates.

Teapots: We found lots of almost lovely enough teapots and cups the first two days and on the third day we finally found beautiful teapots that we loved and they were available in an amazing array of colors.

Oh, but this is the line we already carry.

Beehouse Teapots made in Japan.

Chocolate: We have been carrying chocolate line from Belgium that is infused with flowers and spices that we adore, but we're always open to something new.

So, we tasted a dozen green tea candies, tea infused chocolates shaped like teacups, shortbread cookies infused with tea and on and on. Not one thing was even a consideration. Bummer.

Tea: so much tea, so many cups, I felt awful about all the waste.

There were so many poorly brewed pots of tea. Even the tea that I carry and the tea line that I picked up were brewed in a way that was not quite right.

Our hands-down favorite product was a jasmine tea non-alcoholic "champagne".

It was beautifully brewed and carbonated and not too sweet.

I will be serving it at events and offering it as a special order item.

We met some cousins who were representing their family tea plantation in India. One of the cousins lives in India the other in Los Angeles. They had lovely energy and amazing tea.

I found a grower selling my favorite jasmine tea: yin hao jasmine. Organic, even. I'm hoping to have that in the store and my teacup soon.

We went to the world tea expo, it seems, mostly, to realize what we are carrying is the best and yes we can add a few things here and there, but really, we're pretty dialed in.

piper ewan

Piper Ewan is the second line I carried in my store beyond my own.
Kirsten Moore is the designer.














Here are some of the ones we carry.

Green

I'm in an anthroposophical study group in which we are looking at the relationship between art and spirituality. We are a diverse group that has met once a week for almost 3 years.
Color comes up often. We occasionally do experiential art exercises and a year ago last spring we discussed doing exercises based in the experience of color.
One color at a time.
It should be noted that in Waldorf Art in the lower grades the children begin painting not to create art but to have an experience with color. They get one color at time with only water to expand or contract the color. They just experience the one color. Next week another color. It is unsatisfying for some parents as their children bring home not a sweet house with chimney and a bit of smoke but a page of Blue. In our product over process culture this leaves a bit to be desired and sometimes confusion for parents.
But once you've painted just blue for 3o minutes you understand the Blueness of it and as you use color in the future your singular color experience will have deepened your connection to and your understanding of the interconnectedness of all colors.
Our group is comprised of artists. A potter, sculptor, painter, puppet maker, book arts guru, basket weaver, blacksmith and herbalist? Yes I am the one who is not quite like the others and yet it works. When we were talking about the color exercise we considered how to as adults have a singular color experience and I had a moment of inspiration in which I wanted to create a scent that evoked a color and as we worked our way through the colors one by one I would challenge myself to create a scent to match the color.
This stewed and brewed within me and I, in my overly busy life had to let this one "extra" thing go.
Then on a day last winter when the store was so busy and I was about to feel sorry for myself that no one was coming in AKA I'm a failure and no one loves me. (Pity is not pretty I know.) I adjusted my outlook to one of: I'm so lucky to have my own store and I will act is if I'm in a little girl's fairy tale dream of having a perfume store. (It's all true, I just needed to look again.) And with that I decided to "play". I spent the rest of the day playing around with essential oils, absolutes & waxes and made some little tins of perfumed balms.
I had a great afternoon and amazingly the scents were all wonderful.
I came back to them over time and had customers smell them and I thought about them occasionally.
One of my favorite customers loved a spicy-citrus one and asked me to make some for him so I did.
Time passes. Months.
I find some adorable little balm containers that I just have to have. I buy them and wonder what I can put in these little things. I begin experimenting to find a product to go in them. Just for fun because the containers are so darn cute.
During this time I am trying to create a line of teas under the io brand and even though I have been blending teas for more than a dozen years it was just too big of a project to succeed at as a store owner and manufacturer working mostly alone about 45 hours (minimum) a week.
Blah, blah blah.
More time passes.
Last week my friend Tom was over and I was showing him my new perfume. It's green, the container is green and the scent evokes green. Tom says "you did it, you made the smell of green."
Wow, I had forgotten about that so long ago inspiration from the art group and here we were more than a year later with a tiny green fruit of my labor and inspiration.

P.S. there is more exciting news coming soon about the scents (yes plural.)
I'm so excited!
xo