A History of Good Thymes in the Kitchen

  We began our adventure using herbs in cooking when we opened our charming mountain eatery called the Farmers Kitchen in Alsea, Oregon in 1983. It was a beautiful little restaurant with cedar lined walls and open beamed ceilings. A favorite stopping place while passing through Oregon's Coast Range Mountains on the way to the beach. Innocently started as a cook's garden, our small collection of herbs quickly surrounded the entire building, delighting all our customers with the opportunity to experience all sorts of flavors and fragrances. We used edible flowers and colorful herbs as garnishes on all our plates as well as our salads. Herbs were included in almost all of our main dishes, breads and sauces. Each plate was a new canvas and edible flowers and colorful herbs took the place of paints. We found creating beautiful food to be just as much an artistic outlet as something wonderful for the palate. We were just having FUN with food! We were flattered when stories were told about the Farmers Kitchen in well known publications such as Mother Earth News, Sunset Magazine and Northwest's Best Places to Eat.

  Now the Farmer's Kitchen is but fond memories. In 1990 we began a new adventure by starting The Thyme Garden Herb Company, a mail order and retail herb nursery that helped to satisfy our newly found passion for collecting herbs. However, we just couldn't seem to escape being creative with food. Food seems to be an excellent bridge between all facets of life....people to people, people to politics, and in our case people to the Earth. In no time we were back to making people happy again with food. For over twenty years now we have been entertaining groups of people throughout the summer, with a tour of our beautiful display gardens and finishing with an herbal luncheon that makes the senses swirl.