Sometimes sour things -- like herbal vinegar -- are born of the sweetest love stories. Seventeen years ago, house hunting led Barb and Jack Phillips to a soon-to-be-condemned, five-level house on a weed-choked slope overlooking the South Side.
 |
 |
|
Oregano, chives, garlic, peppercorns and dried chile peppers are just a few of the herbs and spices Barb Phillips uses to flavor her herbal vinegars. (Gabor Degre, Post-Gazette) |
Where a narrow barren courtyard sat like a pit separating the house from winding 18th Street, Barb envisioned lush gardens. Where third-floor windows overlooked a dizzying drop to tangled brush, she saw a grand view of the Downtown skyline and imagined evenings on a deck surrounded by potted plants. She hadn't yet developed her love affair with herbs. That would come later.
To Barb, the fixer-upper was a dream buy at less than the cost of most new cars. To Jack, who owns his own heating business and knows about these things, it was a nightmare, even to a handyman. He put his foot down. She cried. Just to quiet her, he made a ridiculously low offer. The owner bit, and the house was theirs.
"I vowed I would not drive a nail," Jack remembers. But soon Barb hung purple paisley wallpaper and started English ivy and trumpet vine in the stone-lined courtyard. Jack, who by this time had sanded and stained the home's plank floors, began building flower boxes along the deck's borders. Barb filled them.
Seventeen years later, the once-desolate courtyard is a fragrant herbal jungle. Under the trumpet vine canopy, herbs such as thyme, tarragon, garlic chives and lemon verbena trail along the stones. Near the front door, scented geraniums peek from the tops of olive oil cans and basil spreads across a terra cotta pot. The flower boxes that Jack built overflow with oregano, sorrel, sage and more thyme. In the kitchen, bottles of herbal vinegar grace the windowsill, filtering sunlight onto the polished hardwood floor.
 |
|
| |
Basic Herb Vinegar
Practically any herb or combination can be used to make herbal vinegar, says Barb Phillips. She has seen recipes using fresh ginger, lemon and orange peels, and even rose petals, whole tulips and other edible flowers such as peppery flavored nasturtiums. The vinegars can be used in salad dressings, marinades, soups, sauces and stews. Use 1 cup fresh herbs to 3 cups vinegar.
Some herbs that blend well with red wine vinegar are rosemary, sage and oregano. Some herbs that blend well with white wine or champagne vinegar are chives, oregano, savory and tarragon.
Place 1 cup fresh herbs (or flowers) in a wide-mouthed jar and pour vinegar over. Cover and let sit for two weeks, shaking every day or two. Can use as is, or strain and add to fresh herbs in a decorative bottle.
Makes about 3 cups.
Barb Phillips
| | |
|
|
Barb, who joined Evening Thymes Herb Club at Beechwood Farms 10 years ago, didn't have any plans for her herbs other than to enjoy them. "When I started planting them, I used to stand out here and just . . . mmmm," she says, smelling deeply of a pineapple sage plant.
About five years ago, she read an article on making herbal vinegar. She found the process so simple and the vinegar so tasty that she and another club member began doing herbal vinegar demonstrations. She says her tiny courtyard is a great example of how a little space goes a long way when planting herbs.
Phillips says she is not necessarily the "vinegar lady" -- sometimes she dries the herbs or makes pesto, herb butter or crafts -- but she does make bottles of herbal vinegar for gifts. Early fall, when the herb gardens of the well-intentioned are choked with the advantageous plants, is a perfect time to bottle the crop. Phillips says most herbs are fine for bottling until mid- to late October. Vinegar, nature's preservative, keeps indefinitely and can be used as a holiday gift.
Making herbal vinegar is so simple that Phillips is almost embarrassed to demonstrate the process. During the year, she saves wide-mouthed jars, such as mayonnaise, for the initial bottling. She also saves narrow-necked bottles, such as salad dressing or plain vinegar bottles, into which to pour the finished vinegar for gift-giving. Pretty bottles also can be found at craft, cookware and wine-making shops.
Phillips recommends good-quality vinegar. "Regular distilled or cider vinegars are harsh, except when making an unsubtle flavor like hot pepper vinegar," she says.
She buys Regina brand red wine or white wine vinegars at Pennsylvania Macaroni in the Strip. She says other good vinegars are mild-flavored rice or champagne.
She plucks several sprigs of an herb, or a combination of a few. A good rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of herbs to 3 cups vinegar.
When it's time to make the vinegar, Phillips runs the jars through the dishwasher (they can also be washed and filled with boiling water and allowed to sit 10 minutes).
|
 |
|
Barb Phillips assembles fresh herbs for flavored vinegars in her South Side kitchen. (Gabor Degre, Post-Gazette) |
Into a jar she places about a cup of herb sprigs, and perhaps some peppercorns and garlic cloves. Then she pours in about 3 cups vinegar and caps the jar. "If you're using a metal lid," she warns, "cover the jar first with waxed paper and then put the lid on," as the vinegar will rust the lid.
Then she takes the jars down to the cool, dark basement to rest for a couple of weeks (some recipes say to place jars in sunlight). Every day or so, she gives the jars a shake to blend the flavor.
After the flavors have mixed, it's time to make the gift bottles. Phillips sterilizes the narrow-neck bottles and picks more fresh herbs (the same flavor that went into the vinegar). She places a sprig in a bottle, followed by fresh peppercorns and fresh garlic cloves. She strains the flavored vinegar from the wide-mouthed jars through a coffee filter into a carafe, and then pours it into the narrow-necked bottles.
She corks the bottle and ties a pretty ribbon on a bottle spout, which she buys at restaurant supply stores in The Strip. "I don't put a label in the middle of the bottle, because it ruins the look," she says. Instead she affixes a small label at the neck. (Attaching a recipe for marinade or dressing that uses the vinegar encourages people to use the vinegar instead of just admire it.)
As a gift, herbal vinegar is pretty, easy and inexpensive. As a craft, it's practical because it uses excess herbs and recycles bottles. For Barb Phillips, who uses the bottles as a calling card, the vinegar is a little reminder of what can come of a garden planted in love.
Jennifer Kissel is a Reserve free-lance writer.
Related Recipes:
Italian Vinegar
Provencal Vinegar
Provencal Marinated Chicken
Sweet Violet Vinegar
E-mail this story 
