Cleaning Thyme

In summer there are so many tasks here in Paradise. Garden harvest comes one wave after another – broccoli, peas, potatoes, green beans, and so forth. Herbs, too, must be harvested before the plants set blossoms. I harvest only oregano and thyme, mostly thyme, because I use it in making many dishes. I cut the top three or four inches of the stems and scatter them on a dishtowel. They sit on the kitchen counter to dry for several days.

The next step is to remove stems from the dried herbs. This is a time-consuming task, one I have little time for in the busy harvest months, so I put the dried herbs in plastic bags and tuck them in the cabinet for later cleaning.

I usually clean the herbs in the autumn, but this year two surgeries occupied my thoughts. Yesterday, Jan. 2, I tackled cleaning a bag of thyme. With Jimmy Dale Gilmore’s Orbiting the Sun playing in the background, I poured the thyme onto a white plate and set to work separating the stems from the leaves.

At the top of the photo is a little heap of stems. At the lower left is the clean pile. At the right is a pile of uncleaned thyme.

I proceed by pulling a little uncleaned thyme toward the center of the plate.

After picking out the stems I slide the leaves into the cleaned pile, and so on until the job is finished.

Finally, I pour the clean thyme into this bottle with identifying label designed by Carol, my youngest child.

It’s gratifying to spend early days of this new year completing just one of a long, long list of tasks left over from 2014. Let this be the year when I can declare on New Year’s Eve, “I got ‘em done!”

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer