Added this Week: 2021-02-20

bunch of onions
Photo by Samur Isma on Unsplash

As I was prepping the updated images for this week’s post I came across this image of a beautiful rope of onions and laughed out loud. Why may you ask would I laugh out loud at a picture of onions? That is a good question and I am glad you asked. Listen very carefully, as I shall say this only once.

When we have a few quiet moments (read collapsed in a chair after dinner and a long day of running around) we like to engage in one of our guilty pleasures, Britcoms. An all-time favorite for years has been the BBC series “Allo, Allo!” starring Gorden Kaye. The show focuses on the life of a French café owner, Rene Artois in Nouvion, during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. Our ‘hero’ finds himself in a torrent of misadventures between the Germans, Allies, and the French resistance. The resistance leaders decide his cafe is to be the center of activities which leads to one of the show’s ongoing gags, a series of clandestine messages passed through the cafe mostly by characters in disguise, and frequently as you may have suspected, dressed as traveling onion salesmen.
I should have never suspected.

While our onions are not hand-delivered by some poor, local traveling onion salesman, they are certified USDA organic and kosher. And even though these are dried for preservation, I am always reminded that the juice of a fresh onion blended with mustard oil is the base for a massage oil that reportedly can be useful with joint pain.

Here are some of the new updates to the shops that you may have missed since the last blog:

Tasty Trace Minerals are back! This “really not a tea” has been in our catalog from day one and with good reasons. As a boost for a variety of trace minerals, this does hit the mark as it contains large amounts of calcium, magnesium, and sodium, as well as lesser amounts of chromium and selenium, and trace amounts of iron, phosphorous, silicon, and zinc.
Also know as a solid source of gallic acid, phenols, starches, sugars, vitamins A, B complex, C, K, and P, this “food” herb when combined with a rich supply of Vitamin C and a variety of carotenoids of Rosehips becomes a go-to remedy for a variety of complaints. In recent years the natural Slippery Elm population has been attacked by Dutch Elm disease pacing it on a Species at Risk watchlist. With this in mind, we have reformulated our blend to add Marshmallow root powder to help protect this important resource.

As you may have noticed in your shopping cart there is a local pickup for folks here in Connecticut that has been requested for a long time now. In these days of required economies, folks find it a welcome option and a great excuse to take a drive through the Quiet Corner. But as we are now used to in these days, things come up and plans change. I’ve added this option to help folks that suddenly realize that they would rather go ahead and have their package being shipped after all. It also is a great way to “split” an order, in case you wanted to send a bag of tea to your favorite aunt or best friend without the fuss of filling two carts.

Marshmallow root has been a longtime staple in the UsefulWeeds repository and as such it finds itself into many of our blends. As a demulcent the powder can be used in many ways, being blended into body care products, teas, or used in cooking. Traditional folk practices use it to soothe and moisten mucous membranes of the respiratory, digestive, and urinary tracts, and also as an external poultice. And of course, there’s the original “marshmallow”. I have been increasingly using to supplement blends where we traditionally used Slippery Elm Bark powder exclusively in order to bring in the mucilaginous and nutritive benefits of this plant while reducing the burden on the increasingly threatened Slippery Elm.

Nothing could have made me happier this week than to add this honey, produced locally by my friends Deb & Jerry at Hillside Honey, into the shop. The family and I have been using their honey for several years now and it’s been in just about everything that I can think of from tea, to salves, to cakes, to elixirs (and even occasionally into my mouth in big spoonfuls!). I hope you find their honey just as delightful in your uses as we have in ours.

Well that’s it for now, we’ll be seeing you next time.
‘Till then, Stay Safe, Be Well, Stay Whole!

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