Toni, Thai cooking is something like Chinese and something like Indian, but really something all to itself, spicy and very fresh with lots of citrus notes (think lemon grass). Kaffir leaves are an essential part of Thai cuisine. The leaves are used whole in soups and sliced very thin (like a super fine julienne) for other dishes. Below is a recipe I got off the the Net that is easy and very tasty. By the way, my five new trees arrived today. The Australian finger lime is quite large, which is to be expected for a two-three year old. It has some flowers on it but no fruit, which is fine by me. From its appearance I get the feeling it grows like a weed. The kumquat is the smallest tree, but it has a small fruit on it. Will see if it stays on or falls off. I will take some pics within the next couple of days and post them here. Beef Panang - Panang Nua 2 Servings 2 tablespoons sugar 4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced (a leaf is one leaflet off of a mature compound leaf) 2 tablespoons fish sauce 1 1/2 tablespoons red curry paste 1 cup coconut milk 1 lb. beef, sliced (flank steak, top round, etc.) Pour 1/2 of the coconut milk in a pan over medium heat. Add curry paste and break it up to mix it with coconut milk. Keep stiring to prevent bottom from sticking. Lower the heat to simmer if necessary. Simmer until red oil appears. Add the beef and stir to coat the beef with the curry paste. Add sugar, fish sauce and the rest of coconut milk. Let it simmer until the beef is tender and the liquid is reduced to a thick sauce. It should take about half an hour to an hour depending on your heat. Add water if your beef is still tough and let the liquid reduce. Sprinkle the sliced kaffir lime leaves on top. Serve hot over rice. narcnh

I used to be addicted to herbs. Then, I found a remedy on an obscure website that has cured my addiction. It is composed of several rare and unusual herbs that took much time and money to procure from the far reaches of the planet. Most of the names I cannot pronounce. Some have been banned by various, unenlightened government agencies in different countries around the globe, and as a result several packages arrived in plain, brown wrapping. After planting everything in the dark on a moonless night and after months of fervent cultivation, I harvested my first crop. Careful measurement and combination of the ingredients, many of which are fatal in doses slightly above the recipe quantities, resulted in an elixir best described as green. It cured me. Of course, over time my tolerance has increased and, consequently, so has my dosage. Now, I am growing the herbs in the remedy on several acres of land, and it takes about 18 hours a day to care for them, harvest them and process them into the remedy. I quit my day job and work on the herbs every waking moment. But, at least I'm not addicted to herbs anymore. I have to go now and drink another gallon of the remedy, since it has been 15 minutes since my last dose. Then, I must return to the fields and weed the herb plants. They call to me, nay, they summon me. narcnh

I can tell you what will help. Xanax! If this doesn't work,or if your friendly doctor doesn't agree that you need this, then I will post pictures of the 1000+ pots that I've got full of 5 year old seedlings that must be sold next Spring or I will have to beg Miracle Grow for a permanent spot of their board of directors because I have bought enought soil and fertilizer since July to become the board president!!! Those lovely little not quite round seeds grow and grow and grow. They out grow the red cup stage quickly. Then here comes the one gallon stage. You can fool them into staying in these only about a year, maybe 2 if you ignore the fact that when you water, it doesn't even slow down in the pots because it is so full of roots. Now, when you go up to the 3 gallon size, you get smart. 3 fans can fit in this one pot. Yeap! They can but guess what?? These 3 become 6 in a good year and more in some cases. Now, you've already repotted these things 3 times. Are you getting the picture of just how much soil you will need for these babies? Maybe God blessed you with good soil and you can actually plant the seedlings into the ground. I can only imagine how much room you will need to plant out say, 500 seeds that are now 500 big size seedling??? OHHHHH my aching knees, back and feet. I'd be digging in my clay soil til Moses toots his horn. Plus all these wonderful in ground plants draw grass to the beds that has to be pulled out and out and out. I hope I have painted a picture bad enough for you to say enough!!! Enjoy what you have. I just love waiting for the first little tip of green to poke up out of the soil. It's a natural high, and legal too!!! There is nothing, short of the birth of a grand child, that equals seeing your first seedling bloom. Even if it's a dud, you'll love it. Then you will get good ones and you are flying so high!!! I have spent the last 3 months repotting over 350 pots. Most of them were a roots tangled up mess. I got as many as 12 fans out of a 5 gallon pot. It took over 4 hours just to untangle and clean the roots and get them repotted into 12 single pots. How that much was in one pot is unbelievable. The 350 pots that are complete are now in a little over 1000 3 & 5 gallon size pots. Like I said, it's taken 3 months to do this many and I have over 500 more!!!! I'm sure they will give me atleast another 1500 pots. I won't finish these this year. I just don't have time, money or will to do that many more before the weather starts getting cold. I'm fixing to start planting seeds myself. Seeds that I grew 4,3,2,and 1 years ago. I'll not get them all planted because I don't have nowhere near the space to keep them inside my small greenhouse until spring. I also would have to start the repotting game with my new babies and I'm NOT going to have that many to do again. I cured myself of the buying game. I bought about 10 small auctions this year. I only got these because they were some that I realllllly wanted. Believe me, when you see all that green in 2 years, you will cure yourself. It is fun! It is a great feeling to think about what a beauty you may have from that one little seed that you only paid $3 for and you can dream of all the things you will be able to do when you get extra money from growing a little seed. I have read several forums where the bigger growers grow out 2000 seedlings and end up with 2 registered plants from the 2000. That's a scary thought to me. I understand, now. But it doesn't stop me from growing. It over whelmed me for 2 years. That and a few really hard life lessons during that time. So now, I'm doing a lot better with over 1000 pots out there to be sold if I can sell them next year. It's been HARD work to get them in good shape and expensive. I have enjoyed it though. I may be out on the side of the road next year when they start blooming trying to sell some of them. But, I even look forward to that. I spent several hours today watering them and cleaning out dead foilage. They really look beautiful now. Most of the fans are HUGE!!! I discovered alfafa pellets when I read and read all the information I could find about giving my seedlings the best when I repotted them. It has made such a difference. The color of the fans is a deep blue green. I've counted the leaves on some of the fans and there is a few that has 24 healthy leaves on one fan. Alfafa pellets work. I'm anxious to see if they will improve bud count and scape count per fan. Next year will be a learning experince in a lot of ways for me. Well, I've written a page again. I send out my love and best wishes for many blssings to be given to you by our wonderful God. Only God can create the beauty we are given in our gardens on a daily basis. Blessings to all, Mona

I actually have a 12 step program that I came up with a few years ago, and it's proven to be very effective for me. Try this: Step One: Buy more hostas Step Two: Buy more hostas Step Three: Buy more hostas Step Four: Buy more hostas Step Five: Buy more hostas Step Six: Buy more hostas Step Seven: Buy more hostas Step Eight: Buy more hostas Step Nine: Buy more hostas Step Ten: Buy more hostas Step Eleven: Buy more hostas Step Twelve: Return to Step One I've been through the entire program several times, and so far it's been very successful and much easier than I anticipated. I do find it best not to go through the entire 12 steps every year. Now if you want a slightly more serious 12 step program, try this: Step One: Buy your first hosta at a big box store, become instantly addicted. Step Two: Dig up a small area in the shady part of the property where nothing else will grow anyway, and put in an entire bed of hostas--5 or 6 different ones, all from the box store. Be sure you do NOT label anything, make a map, or write down the names of the varieties you bought, even if the box store had them tagged. Step Three: Discover that the local nursery has MUCH nicer hostas than the box store, and that the entire genus does not consist of only 6 varieties--there are at least 20 different hostas out there! And you have to have ALL of them, even though the local nursery is a whole lot more expensive than the box store! Step Four: Enlarge your new hosta bed, because there is no way it's going to hold the 12 new varieties you bought at the local nursery. Besides, you are going back to the nursery for the other 8 varieties as soon as you get your next paycheck, or the birthday money your parents said they are sending. Plant the new varieties about a foot apart--a hosta can't possibly get bigger than that, can it? Step Five: Mention to everyone you know that you are now a hosta gardener. Eventually you will come across someone who will tell you that they have had hostas for years, and would be happy to share some with you. Drive to their house and be shocked at how large a hosta can get. Gleefully accept all the plants they give you, forget the names immediately, drive home and somehow stuff them in the new bed. Plan to enlarge the bed the next day. Step Six: The hostas from the nursery all had labels in the pots, and you have realized that you don't know anything about any of the plants you bought, and don't know the names of the ones you got from the neighbor. Go online to do some research, and discover the Hosta Library. Your head will now explode. Step Seven: You MUST HAVE every hosta listed in the Hosta Library!!! Immediately!!! You discover a hosta specialist nursery that does mail order, and place a $300 initial order. While you wait for it to arrive, you amuse yourself by digging out the rest of the grass that was in the shade areas to convert it all to hosta beds. The order arrives, and you discover that you have ordered 5 varieties that have a green center and a white edge, 5 varieties that have a green edge and a white center, 5 varieties that are green with a gold edge, and 5 varieties that are green with a gold center. You love them all. Step Eight: You plant the 20 new hostas, but something is wrong. It occurs to you that maybe a few solid colored hostas would not be amiss. You get back on the web, find a new nursery, and are quite taken with Blue Angel, Sum & Substance, Blue Mammoth, Blue Umbrellas, Golden Sculpture, Montana Macrophylla, Elatior, Niagara Falls, and Nigrescens. While you wait for them to arrive, you amuse yourself by researching the mature size of all your new plants, and realize that you are in trouble. A sizable hunk of partly shady lawn becomes a hosta bed. Step Nine: You have become aware that some sort of order must be brought to this addiction. Not only is your bank account dwindling alarmingly, and your spouse becoming a trifle surly, but the lawn is quietly disappearing as well. You have hostas everywhere, with no order, too crowded, and not well marked. Stop and take a deep breath, and don't buy another hosta until you have gotten ALL of your hostas marked, moved to better locations, and harmoniously arranged in the beds, taking into consideration mature size, color, plant habit, and leaf shape. (don't worry, nobody ever actually does step nine) Step Ten: Okay, now that you have skipped Step Nine, you decide maybe it's time to become much more selective about which hostas you buy. You now discover the hosta forum, a weird place where absolutely everyone is completely obsessed with hostas, and perfectly willing to talk about them all day and most of the night. You lurk for a while, then start to post asking advice on whether or not you should buy variety A, or variety B. The entire forum leaps in to tell you to buy both, and that you must get variety C, D, E, F, and G as well. Step Eleven: You realize that restraint is what you need, because there isn't a square foot of empty space left in which to plant another hosta, and you are still seeing pictures of must-have plants posted on the forum on a daily basis. Suddenly the solution occurs to you--minis! You set out to stuff a mini in every spot that has even so much as 6 square inches of available space. You also dig out and give away all the original common 'boring' hostas you bought from the box store, and start a wish list of the seriously expensive, new hostas that you will someday buy. Step Twelve: Give up on your current house, and move to the country. Be sure to buy at least 3 acres--anything smaller fills up too quickly. You are now a regular contributor to the forum (read enabler), sell hostas on the side to support your habit, are beginning to dabble in hybridizing, you go sport fishing at every nursery within 100 miles where the entire staff knows you by your first name, attend the national convention every year, and when you aren't digging in the dirt, you are busy converting other poor innocent souls into hosta addicts. The entire county refers to you as "that strange person with all those funny looking plants under the trees", you know off the top of your head that Montana Praeflorens is now called Montana Macrophylla, you can tell El Nino from First Frost at 20 paces and know who hybridized both, and you've never been happier in your life. Or at least you will be, just the minute you get your hands on a nice start of Ribbon Dancer! Congratulations--you've finished the twelve step program. I highly recommend it to everyone.