Judith Benn Hurley

A surprisingly comprehensive reference book on herbs. The author covers growing them (albeit invariably from "small, organically grown plants", as apparently she doesn't believe in growing from seed) and using them both in cooking and medicine, as appropriate. I was especially delighted by her instructions for making a tincture of echinacea from the flowers instead of uprooting the plant. She seldom falls into the sloppy habit of a lot of herbal books telling the reader to go to their local health food store and buy tinctures or capsules; the chapter on Evening Primrose was one of her few slips in that regard, but fortunately one of Samuel Thayer's books on wild food has plenty of information on harvesting and using the plat, at least for culinary purposes. I was also surprised at the omission of comfrey from the book. However, in general I was quite pleased with the remedies and the recipes, which look quite interesting. I look forward to trying some of them.… (mer)