A Love Letter to Rosemary

A patient, persistent herb

Hello from London! Teo and I are at the tail end of our trip and a little worse for wear, with sniffly noses, our luggage in a state of disarray, and no clean laundry left. Appearances aside, we’ve had a splendid time and seen lots of people we love, including our darling friends Georgia and Reece, whose wedding we attended in Oxford — the original impetus for our flight across the pond. There was much to love about Georgia and Reece’s wedding, but one of my favorite bits was when we were all picked up from the ceremony in a red double-decker bus (!) and driven to the reception venue. We sat on the upper deck with the rest of the youngins, drinking champagne from plastic flutes and fawning over the newlyweds. 

The gorgeous newlyweds and the red double-decker bus

Georgia is the first person I met at Ballymaloe, and I remember standing in the kitchen of the Pink Cottage, getting to know her over a pack of cheese-and-onion crisps. Our conversations were easy from the beginning, and over the years, we’ve demonstrated a shared commitment to our friendship, despite the distance. She and Reece visited me and Teo in New York a couple years ago, and I still consider that week one of my most joyful to date. How is it possible that I might’ve never met Georgia had I not attended that particular session at Ballymaloe? 

Shanagarry, NYC, Oxford

The end of a trip is always bittersweet, but it’s nice how it makes you appreciate the normalcy of home: grocery shopping at your local store where you know every aisle, reestablishing a consistent bedtime, going to work, to the gym, to meet a friend for coffee. I saw somewhere that you know you’re home when you don’t have to think about how to turn on the shower and get the water to the right temperature — it’s just instinctual. After two weeks of excitement, I’m looking forward to stepping into my very familiar shower. (We’re always trying to strike the right balance of normal and novel in this life, aren’t we?)

Today on The Dish, I’m sharing another short-but-sweet ingredient love letter, to rosemary, this time. (See last month’s ode to crème fraîche here.)

On Rosemary

In the summer, basil is my chosen herb, boundless and fragrant. I eat it as if it were lettuce, tossing it into salads and tucking it into BLTs. I pound it into pesto, blitz it into aioli, infuse it in olive oil. I lift it to my face and inhale the scent. I throw the aromatic stalks into whatever I’m braising, and julienne the leaves into basil confetti. It’s funny — given the intensity of my summer basil fixation — that as soon as the weather shifts and the basil wilts, my mind turns to rosemary. 

Rosemary is a natural partner to garlic, citrus, potatoes, olive oil, pumpkin, red wine, lamb, and so many other cold weather comforts. And although rosemary is native to the Mediterranean, where it grows wild and thick year-round along the roadsides, I associate it with New England winters. I primarily grew up in Massachusetts, and rosemary always seemed to emerge in our kitchen with the first chill, when my dad would reach for it again. So it only makes sense that rosemary turns from a pleasant thought to an unavoidable craving when I first break out my sweaters.

Some ideas for you

My dad, Peter, is a man with a list of classic, go-to recipes, several of which, I realized, contain rosemary. There are, of course, his crispy roast potatoes, speckled with finely chopped rosemary, which might be served on their own or blanketed with melted raclette on special occasions. He’s also fond of roasting lamb with rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves, and it always amazes me that such strong flavors (rosemary and lamb) combine to a mellower effect, the woody herb grounding the gamey meat. Still another of my dad’s classics is potato-rosemary pizza. (Homemade pizza night is a delicious and messy undertaking.) He brushes the dough with garlic-infused oil, then arranges paper-thin slices of potato, cubed pancetta, and chopped rosemary on top. I’d never found potato pizza elsewhere before I lived in Rome and found it at every forno — a happy surprise. My perfect breakfast in Rome is a square slice of fresh potato pizza: hot, oily, perfumed with rosemary, and eaten outside in a piazza. Rome, rosemary, home away from home. 

A perfect slice of potato-rosemary pizza in Rome

Be it on a roadside, in a garden bed, or in a plastic clamshell at the grocery store, rosemary is always there, as patient and persistent as the wool sweater in a box beneath your bed.

Now that we’re back in the cold, I’m reaching for rosemary again, just like my dad does, only this time I’m not only craving it in lamb and potatoes but also in sweets. Yes, rosemary, however distinct and powerful, is surprisingly amenable to sugary treats. Peaches, vanilla, brown butter, lemon, olive oil, cornmeal, brown sugar, orange, even dark chocolate — these are the tastes I’ve learned to love with a touch of piney, peppery rosemary.

With that, the wool sweater is new again!

Did I mention rosemary is also decor? Take a cue from Mary’s table (above), as I’m wont to do.

More from me soon. (No promises, but I hope to squeeze in one more post this month!)

x Phoebe