The Privilege of Basil

How does one tell one story when story is all around us? When we bought a plant. Why we bought that particular plant. Is anyone really interested? Does that make a difference? Making a story interesting, involves context. I could just tell you that I forgot to buy basil but the whole story tells so much more than that. Here is my story of buying a basil plant.

I needed fresh basil for a salad I was taking to a birthday dinner. Our birthday dinners, for the past ten or more years had been a group effort. The hostess sets the menu, and each of us, except the birthday girl, prepare and bring a part of that menu. For my contribution, it was a green bean salad with black olives, onion, and grape tomatoes and finished with a mustard and red wine vinegar dressing. And fresh basil which I had forgotten to buy when buying groceries for our celebratory birthday dinner. I hadn’t followed my grocery list completely. Busy grocery stores want me to hurry up and get home and a basil plant was not a typical purchase. They need so much water, they are kind of a nuisance. In the back of my mind, I suspect I didn’t really want a whole plant. Once I was home and preparing to make my salad, I first reviewed the recipe I had been given and there, in clear black and white was ‘a large handful of basil’. I promptly pushed that detail aside until taking my afternoon walk in quaint and treed Cook Street Village on a lovely summers day. A brilliant light bulb moment to equal the brilliant sunshine shone around me. I can get a basil plant at the grocery store, or, better yet, at Seaberry. It’s a lovely little plant and garden store where I’ve donated a fair few dollars. I have a little cactus and succulent garden that is just beautiful because of my many sojourns there. But, I digress. After rejecting a typical small basil plant, I spied a beautiful green, lush and large basil plant, which I purchased - some for the salad and the rest for me - at least that was my rationale. (I avoided, with great restraint, anymore succulent plants - for now.) Was my salad a success? It received great reviews despite my forgetting to put the basil in! The peppery anise flavour of fresh basil on my sandwiches or in my own salads are a special treat. Each time I smell the delicious basil aroma as lovely green plant sits quietly on my dining room table, I feel privileged. That humble plant reminds me of a summer's walk in the Village, a browse in favourite stores along the way, and an elegant and fun birthday celebration, with friends, for a good friend.

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,  White Nights