an aussie in austria

Coriander seems to be one of those things – you either love it or you detest it with unrivaled passion. When we looked at herbs to grow last year, I decided I wanted coriander. I am, if you haven’t already gathered, one of the lovers. And it’s not so easy to get coriander on demand over here.

We tripped down to the local nursery and Thomas asked if they had coriander. Now, I couldn’t quite grasp all the German words that ripped out of that lovely young lady’s mouth following the question, but in my mind it was something like: What the hell is wrong with you? Coriander is the devil and people who like it are the devil. You just ruined my day by bringing that filthy word into my place of business.

Apparently, my translation wasn’t that far off. There was something about it smelling like dead feet. Basically, she was disgusted.

Our kindly assistant flounced off and returned with a weak-looking coriander seedling, and thrust it at us muttering. As we left, Thomas explained that she’d thrown it in for free because she just didn’t even want the thing near her anymore.

I dutifully planted it, and within days it was dead.

But that’s not the end of the coriander story.

The next year, lo and behold, coriander sprung up all by itself.

I am the king of coriander, thought I. I tended to it, determined to keep it alive. Turns out, it wasn’t so hard. What started as this cute little seedling, grew into a monster!

Coriander, it turns out, has a pretty fat root system. Or perhaps a phat root system.

And I am delighted. Because we have coriander. Masses of it.

Love it or hate it, I’m winning at coriander.