Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/589641
196 Za'atar Dipping Blend (for a Mid- dle Eastern flavor) and spaghetti squash with the salt-free herb blend, Pseudo-Salt. She added the Tuscan Dipping Blend to give it an Italian kick, along with a sprinkling of Par- mesan cheese. Dubiel is also a big CO N TAC T Soluna Garden Farm/ Soluna Herb, Spice, and Tea Emporium 600 Main St. Winchester 781-369-5027 solunagardenfarm. com fan of the emporium's Ceylon chai tea mix. In the summer, Soluna Garden Farm yields armfuls of goods on its little plot: 150 herbs for cooking and mixing salves and tinctures, 20 varieties of peppers, and 300 types of flowers, most of which are sold through Community Sup- ported Agriculture shares. While many of the flowers have the lush beauty of cultivated flowers such as gladiolas, dahlias, and peonies, foraged plants (what some people call weeds) including goldenrod and Sweet Annie plump up their beautiful bouquets. "We always leave some sections unweeded and uncultivated," Hirschfeld says. Soluna's spice blends and teas, made with ingredients from organic herb companies, are hand mixed. They are wildly popular items at North Shore and Boston farmers' markets. Lisa Drayton of Boston, a trainer for a nonprofit healthcare organization, has been buying Soluna's teas and spice blends for years, and was thrilled to see their debut last summer at the Boston Public Market, located on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, in the hall above the Haymarket MBTA station in Boston. "I get all my tea from them," Drayton says. "You can almost feel the good properties of the tea healing you. It's so soothing." With the weather shifting to cold days and even colder nights, Drayton says she'll also rev up her intake of the herb- al infusions, like lemon balm and rosehip, to build her resistance. Drayton is like many other Soluna customers—people who are rethinking how they eat and how they connect community and food. "Our customers range from very young college students who like drinking tea to families and chefs," Hirschfeld says. "We like having a really diverse group of customers who are thinking about food, enjoy- ing food and tea, and enjoying it together." Farm manager Momoko Hirose oversees the one- acre the farm.