Can you cook with flowers?

I've always been a late bloomer. I didn't get my first tooth until 18 months and had no hair until I was 2. I think my mom secretly worried that she would end up with a hairless, toothless child. Little did she realize that would be the LEAST of the issues she would eventually face with me. In true Allie fashion, I have recently learned the joy's of cooking, a tad later in life then most, but I am finally cooking.

Crohn's took the last 13 year's of my adult food enjoying life. For those of you that don't know, Crohn's severely limit's what you can and can't eat. In the last few years I couldn't eat meat, dairy, nuts, seeds, and all spices/herbs. I subsisted on french fries and rice and sea food such as fish and shrimp. My go-to food when I was in a flare (almost the entire last year before Oscar) was Matcha Monsoon's by Booster Juice. Yummy, but not enough to keep a person healthy.

Lately I have been trying different herb's to add interest and flavour to my foods. One in particular has captured my attention; Rosemary. I never gave a passing thought to this aromatic herb, thinking it was nothing more then the boutonniere we would wear when dancing in the Kirchweih.

Every September, the Teutonia Youth group and St. Micheal's church would put on Kerchweih, and as a child all it meant to me was I got to wear a pretty halo of flowers in my hair (the above picture is me, approx. 8 years of age, in my dirndl, wearing the flowers!) and dance around with a rosemary bush covered in ribbons. I would have never guessed that nearly 25 years later I would be cooking with that smelly, prickly bush! It does now make me wonder what else can you cook with? Flowers??

Thanks to Oscar I am not only able to eat everything I want, but I am able to be adventurous with what goes in to my food. He has enabled me to cook and have fun in the kitchen.

Thank you Oscar, without you I would not be able to fully appreciate my Jamie Oliver pot's and pans or realize that an oven can be used for more then an extra sock drawer.