Clary Sage is the common name for salvia sclarea. I’ve used it to relieve depression and stress.

It can be used as a scent in soap or put in bath water. Other ways to use it would be to put a droplet of the oil on the edge of a pillowcase before resting, or on a small strip of cloth to fasten to the front of your fan during the summertime.

Clary Sage essential oil is created by steam distillation of the leaves and flowering tops.

Other possible uses are for high blood pressure, muscular aches and pains, skin inflammations including acne, dandruff and hair loss, labor pains, cramps, and asthma.

Today is my day to get out of my kitchen and see what others are doing about town.

Recently I met Elizabeth, the author of Mom Cooks on MyBlogLog.Com. She’s a Michigan mother of three who loves to write about recipes, cooking, and related topics. She owns a Squidoo Lens, How to eat well and lose weight. She also owns three other blogs: Table for Five, MomReviews, and Getting My Blog On.

I like reading Mom Cooks because she not only gives great recipe ideas, she photographs her creations, and writes about her ongoing diet experiences. Plus it is a nice, friendly spot on the web where I feel welcomed and at home. I also love the graphics and blog design used on this blog.

Elizabeth is using an interesting blog plug-in on Mom Cooks. “BlogFollow” follows people who comment using a valid blog URL, and prints a bit of their most recent blog post beneath their comment. You can see this in action under my comment at Healthy veggie spaghetti sauce - yummy too!.

I hope you enjoy visiting Elizabeth’s food blog as much as I have.

My introduction to halva came in the seventies while I was living in San Francisco. One great thing about living in a big city is access to wonderful international treats. San Francisco provided the opportunity to find and enjoy excellent halva.

Halva is a middle eastern treat that can be made with many different flavors, depending on what you put in it. Cardamom, coffee, saffron, and vanilla are popular additives as well as nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit. The halva that I’ve tried most often was dry and crumbly - this type is called ’sesame halva’. There’s another type that is gelatinous, called ’semolina halva’.

Here’s a simple recipe for semolina halva:

Combine two cups of sugar, eight cups of water, and a teaspoon full of saffron. Leave this sitting, uncooked, for half an hour. Put 12 ounces of unsalted butter in a large pot and melt on very low heat. Slowly add 2 cups of wheat flour, stirring constantly. Continue until the color of the flour is caramel colored.

Then slowly pour the water/sugar/saffron mixture into the pot, stirring constantly until the entire mixture is like a sauce, then add a tablespoon of rose water and stir again. (If you have no rose water, try vanilla.)

Pour the mixture into a flat serving dish and let it cool. When cool, you can sprinkle cinnamon on top.

And now for a recipe for sesame halva:

Boil one and one-half cups of sugar with one-half cup of water, and the juice of half a lemon. Add flavoring which could be saffron, chocolate, vanilla, or whatever you like. When the mixture gets to the ’soft ball’ stage, let the syrup cool for a few minutes. Do not stir; instead, warm the tahini to about 120 degrees fahrenheit, stir it well, then add it to the sugar syrup, stirring vigorously. Next knead the concoction until it begins to set to help form sugar crystals. Then place it in an oiled rectangular baking pan, and cool. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Here’s a recipe for herbal sunburn relief:

Simmer a handful of comfrey root with a handful of crushed marshmallow root in 1 cup of oil and 1 cup of white wine - for twenty minutes. Strain, and apply to burns or sunburns when cool.

Keep an eye on it and keep the heat very low.

I got this recipe from Jeanne Rose’s original herbal, Herbs and Things. I bought my copy in 1972 right after it was published, at a health food store in San Francisco’s Sunset District. A few months later I registered in a class about herbs at Heliotrope University in San Francisco, and Jeanne Rose was the teacher! The classes took place in her kitchen, so I got to see her room full of herbs and her herb garden, and drank herb tea with her. I was twenty at the time, and pregnant with my first child, Joshua, who is now a musician living in San Francisco.

I’m amazed I have a first edition of this book, and now the 19th edition is being sold!

Anyhow, I recommend Jeanne Rose’s book and will probably share recipes and information from it again in the future, though I also use other herbals and the internet for reference material these days.

For Mother’s Day this year, my oldest daughter sent me a dream catcher and a bar of Madagascar Vanilla Cherokee Soap from Cherokee County, Georgia. I hung the dream catcher up above my bed and set the soap aside. It sat here on my computer table for a few weeks, and then when I ran out of Dr. Bonner’s soap, which I can buy locally, I asked Bob to bring me some soap from my desk, and he brought this bar of Cherokee Soap into the bathroom for me.

I’m rather picky about soaps because I like soaps made without animal ingredients. I was delighted to see that this soap is made with vegetable ingredients such as olive oil, soy oil, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, and castor oil. It also contains cocoa butter and shea butter, and Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans.

The scent is heavenly and the soap lathers just like the Dr. Bonner soaps do. It’s a great gift and I’m very likely to buy more soap through the online store at Cherokee Soap. The only complaint I have is that there’s no affiliate program so I can’t make any money off this recommendation. But take a look at the site; if you love elegant soaps, you’ll be impressed.