ASIAN PEAR & APPLE CRISP WITH MAPLE ROSEMARY CRUMBLE + A COOKBOOK PREVIEW!

Rosemary. Who are you when you smell rosemary? Do you disappear into a fortress of memory with garlicky roasted potato walls? Do you remember clutching a few hardy strands as you walked down a garden path somewhere in your childhood? Where does the scent take you? What do you feel? How has rosemary been a friend to you? And, more importantly, are you ready to put it in your Asian pear and apple crisp?

I thought so.

Which is why, today, I bring you this recipe cut from the pages of the Kale & Caramel cookbook (go preorder now!). I snagged a few recipes to entertain you while you waited, and this is one of my all-time faves. Think: That perfect, heady aroma of baking apples and butter and sugar and maple syrup. Now factor fresh rosemary leaves into the mix, and imagine how gorgeous your house will smell.

Oh yes—and there’s a surprise: The full Table of Contents of the cookbook is here, ready for your perusal, your drooling, your gustatory desire. It’s just a few scrolls down.

The book is unusual in that it’s organized by herb and flower—eight herbs and four flowers—and it explores the flavor profiles and subtle healing properties of each, both in the kitchen and in food-based body and beauty DIYs. There’s a chart for herbs and flowers at the start of each section, providing details about the aromatic’s origin, its ideal flavor pairings, and its healing properties.

Mint soothes nausea. Rose eases a bruised heart. And rosemary, rosemary instills strength of character.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” To remember is to recall what is most important, to hold fast to a touchstone of care and tenderness and wholeness. Rosemary, a plant whose leaves aid in cellular rejuvenation, helps us to remember what is true.

Each herb, each flower, each recipe comes with its own story of memory and becoming—the place it holds in heart and belly and mind. And then, of course, making each recipe offers new promise for the future selves it will nourish, the gifts it will give in the making, the serving, the being wolfed down by hungry hands and anxious minds.

Here’s the story of this recipe: One blustery San Francisco evening, my friend Sara turned to me as we were dicing apples and pears and said, “What if we put rosemary in the crumble?” I yelped with excitement, and we proceeded to create a scrumptious topping from whole oats and freshly ground oat flour (all you need is a blender). Nestled upon the earthy fruit filling, the rosemary counters any cloying sweetness from the apples and Asian pears, and the maple and olive oil lend a few extra notes of savory, salty amber light.

Sara and I also developed a preferred pastime while waiting for our crisp to bake, a little whimsy called Kitchen Choreo™. Kitchen Choreo is a style of free-form improvisational dance done in the theater of the kitchen, typically performed while lip-syncing the most dramatic Jewel and Whitney Houston songs available.“Who Will Save Your Soul” goes remarkably well with Asian pear crisp.

And now, without further ado: The Kale & Caramel cookbook Table of Contents! Each chapter and recipe comes with its own sense memory, mine—I can’t wait for you to make your own as you cook and concoct from it, as you laugh and cry with it.

Which chapter are you most excited about?!

Preorder Kale & Caramel: Recipes for Body, Heart, and Table! Then download the 4-recipe bonus bundle and make your own infused rosemary oil for use in your food and on your body. Because yes.