Month: January 2020

Fresh herbs are a wonderful thing.  They complement many dishes.  They take other food, that is otherwise good, and then brighten everything.  In the past few years I have been using more and more fresh herbs.  I wonder where they have been my entire life?

I’m using mostly parsley, basil, and cilantro.  These have proven to be cheap, easy, and most useful with the food I make.  Tossing some of these in are just huge flavor bombs.  They are a superb culinary investment if you can grow them where you live.  Screwing around with the herbs can also be a relaxing little hobby.  I am so happy I started using these herbs, and wish I had started with them earlier.

I guess no one told Young Nehemiah that fresh herbs were so much better than the dried herbs I was used to using.  I missed out on years of tastier food.  So this is me telling you to start growing, or buying fresh herbs now and then.  Your food will be tastier and more bright.  A few cilantro leaves might brighten more than your salsa.  I know I can use them to just brighten the day as a whole.  This can all be filed under “Silly But True.”

If there is a larger lesson to be gathered here, maybe it’s that the smallest, cheapest, and easiest thing can have profound impacts.  For the price of a trip to the coffee shop, you can elevate your meals.  You can’t really mess it up either, you chop the herb, and put the herb on food.  We can all do that.  There are probably a hundred things out there like herbs we should be incorporating into our lives.  We just have to go out and find them.

In the last couple years I have become a devotee of long walks.  They clear my head and help me think.  There are also exercise benefits to be gained from a good long walk.  I go on them mostly to think though.  It is nice that they can be done most anywhere too.  However, I am very thankful that my hometown of Monticello has built a nature park in recent yards with some nice walking trails.

Walking in nature seems to help with thinking and relaxation.  I don’t have to worry about getting hit by a car when crossing streets, or sidewalk mayhem.  I can just walk these trails and disappear into thought.  There are some studies that say that being out in nature is mentally healthy too.  So the random deer, squirrels, and rabbits I see might be making me a little bit more healthy.  Having this park as a place to walk and think, that just makes me happy.

I know I am lucky to have this park for my walks.  Ten years ago, this place didn’t even exist.  I would have walked elsewhere, but it’s nice to have a nice place.  I wonder what our lives would be like if we tried to have more nice places for things.  A lot of nice places exist around us, we just have to find them I think.