Sage is a special one for me. Growing up in the UK we had a nice garden which we kept the way I think any garden should be: a bit wild and unkept, meaning that things grew at a great rate and there were always insects buzzing around. One of the great things we had was a sage bush. A big old thing of about 1.5m3, which gave me lots of fond food memories.

However, last year I tried to persuade my mum to use a little bit of the space to grow some of their own veg. She was onboard with it, but said that if I wanted it so bad then I have to do the preparatory gardening and she would do the planting and growing: a pretty fair deal.

There is an area at the edge of our patio underneath a living room window where things have always grown very fast. It is protected from the wind and sees a good amount of sun. In this 1×3.5m plot we have had a couple of strong bushes so the first order of business was getting rid of these. One of these bushes was the sage bush. I was in two minds to leave it but the amount of space it took up was just not proportionate to how much it was getting used and it was time to try something new.

We dried everything we cut off, so that nothing went to waste. The whole experience brought back one of the fondest memories of one of my favourite pasta dishes. It is so simple but the taste is perfect, especially with the fresh sage from the garden. So what is it? When my mum used to make home made pasta, which holds so much better flavour than some of the stuff you buy, the way I liked it best was simply sautéed in butter with a bit of salt and the chopped/slapped sage. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.

How to eat

the herb one of the essential herbs in western cuisine with many uses, you can use it with any meat or fish, red or white wine and even great as the main flavour (see above)