Herb Garnishes

• Be sure to use edible leaves or flowers without blemishes or chemical spray. Fresh herbs and edible flowers are available at many local herb farms, greenhouses and supermarkets.

• Herbs can also be easily grown at home. Most herbs need full sun and good drainage in the garden. When the plants are big enough to clip, pinch them and use them fresh for the best flavor. Pinching plants causes them to bush out and stay compact rather than get spindly.

• The flowers of the herbs are good to use, too, because they have the same flavor as the leaves.

• Following are four dishes that we've garnished with herbs to give you an idea of the concept:

Add lavender, flat-leaf parsley, purple basil, kale and rose petals as a garnish (figure A). The dressing is flavored with chives, thyme and dill.

We chose to garnish this main dish with sage (figure B). Sage makes a wonderful garnish for meats because it enhances the flavor and is very subtle. There are several different varieties of sage--Berggarten, garden, tricolor, golden variegated and purple are just a few.

We used thyme as the garnish for this one (figure C). As with sage, there are many different varieties of thyme, each with its own distinctive flavor. Silver posie thyme was used in this instance. Silver posie is a French variety that works great for a garnish because it is a variegated color and shows up well. It also has an excellent flavor. Other varieties that are available are caraway, lemon, lime and oregano-scented.

The garnish here is the lemon verbena (figure D), which has an intense lemon flavor. It is a perennial shrub that comes from Chile that is not hardy in cold climates, so it needs to be planted each spring and harvested in the fall. The long stems dry readily in just two to three days.

Edible flowers also make great dessert garnishes. Lavender and nasturtiums are two examples of edible flowers that work great as garnishes.