John Gallagher: You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio by LearningHerbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth: And I'm Tara Ruth. Today, we're chatting with Mimi Prunella Hernandez. Mimi is the executive director of the American Herbalists Guild, and formerly served as the director of the Appalachian Center for Ethnobotanical Studies at Frostburg State University in Maryland. She draws upon her rich ethnic background and the influence of her granny healers to inspire her work as a clinical herbalist educator and ethnobotanist. Mimi has dedicated her life's work to serving as an advocate for both traditional and professional herbal pathways while building cultural bridges of understanding. She has a new herbal by National Geographic coming out next year. And you can follow her on Instagram at Herbal Forager or on her website at herbalnightschool.com or join her Facebook group, Advanced Herbal Science.
John Gallagher: Cool. Welcome, Mimi. Thank you for joining us today. It's an honor to have you on.
Tara Ruth: Yes, thank you.
Mimi Hernandez: Oh, thank you both. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here.
John Gallagher: Right now, Mimi, we're recording this podcast in the heart of the summer, and I've been seeing sunflowers blooming all around me. So many people get excited about sunflowers, not just for their blossoms of course, but sunflower seeds. But a lot of people don't know that sunflower is a healing herb. And they don't think about that with a lot of common foods, but especially sunflower. And I was wondering if you could talk about that or your favorite ways to work with sunflower.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm. Oh yes, I love sunflower. And one of the reasons I feel really aligned with sunflower is that it's a native plant of Mexico. And I have lots of family from Mexico, and so I love the story of sunflower. In the Aztec culture, it was very revered. It goes by this name called [foreign language 00:02:04], which means literally shield flower because it looked... They're a warrior nation, and it looked like a shield to them and also associated with their warrior sun god. And so when the Spaniard came, they named it [foreign language 00:02:21], which means it tours with the sun, because if you've ever seen a sunflower field, you see those big rays of sunflower turn from one end of the sky to the other as it follows the sun. It's just so interesting. And then to use it as medicine is... Really became a curiosity for me as I was writing my book and really looking to highlight plants not just of European ancestry, but some Native American, South American plants of the world. So the first thing that I've realized about sunflowers that a lot of the Mexican healers do say it's edible, even the young greens. And of course, we've all had the little sprouts and they're really high... They've got that whole, full spectrum of amino acids and they're really high in B vitamins. But the leaves, once they leave that sprout phase, the leaves really aren't that delicious. They're super bitter, which means it could be a great dietary bitter. But mostly, using these leaves, which are also astringent, as a dress for wounds, as a spit poultice for bee stings and insect bites. Also just infused in alcohol or vinegar, it's a liniment for sore muscles. Sometimes I like to mix it with cayenne and vinegar with some of the greens, and so use that for a liniment topically. And then those little yellow petals on the ray, those little rays are very flavonoid rich and so we can make tea out of the yellow petals. A good gargle for bleeding gums and sore throats because they're really nourishing for collagen.
John Gallagher: Speaking of liniment, what menstruum would you use? What kind of vinegar?
Mimi Hernandez: Oh, I like using just apple cider vinegar. So I'll put a little cayenne in there and some sunflower leaves. I might warm it up if I need the liniment sooner than later, otherwise I'll do a typical apple cider-infused vinegar, or cayenne, sunflower leaf-infused vinegar, and let it soak for a few days and shake it every day and then strain it out. And that's your liniment for sore muscles. And my grandmother also would use sunflower leaves and just rubbing alcohol. And she had this rubbing alcohol that was on the shelf, and she would use that sunflower leaf-infused rubbing alcohol also as a liniment for when you had a fever. So she would rub it around the body with a lot of friction and then wrap the person up in blankets until the sweat comes on. So that's that cooling sweat. And then a syrup. It's also known as a expectorant, so a syrup or a decoction to clear phlegm or even an herbal smoke blend, some of the dried leaf in the herbal smoke blend with other herbs or even tobacco, to help facilitate expectoration.
Tara Ruth: Wow. In that syrup, would you put the flowers, the leaves or yeah, what plant part would you put?
Mimi Hernandez: The leaves and the yellow petals, but mainly the leaves. Again, it's going to be so bitter. I mean, I love my bitters. I love dandelion leaves and just even my bitter greens, but this is a whole nother level, kind of on line with boneset, that really deep, deep, bitter flavor.
John Gallagher: So it's a deep... Do you think honey would be good or...
Mimi Hernandez: Honey would be great.
John Gallagher: To make us syrup for expectorant?
Mimi Hernandez: I think honey would be great, ideal. Yes.
John Gallagher: Hmm. Oh, wow.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah.
Tara Ruth: Taking notes down.
John Gallagher: Very cool. I know. I am. Well, I love-
Tara Ruth: [inaudible 00:06:16].
John Gallagher: ... the idea that when you think differently about a lot of plants that you're putting in your garden, you could plan it and always make sure "Oh, I've got something to help with a poultice for something this time of year and this time of year and this time."
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: As somebody who's a bit of a lazy herbalist, or I just like to go out and just know things are growing that I could just go and pick versus making a bunch of stuff... I'm just kidding.
Mimi Hernandez: Right, right. It's right there. We've got a big sunflower patch here. It's so beautiful. My fiance Terry just loves tending to those sunflowers. They're taller than us. They're just all different colors. Just yeah, so, so beautiful up there on the hill. And then there's the food too. I mean, we all know the seeds are really healthy. In Mexico, they make something called an atole, atole de teja, which is an atole of sunflowers. And atole, I guess, translates to porridge. And there's lots of different atoles. You can make atole from all kinds of ingredients. It's kind of a masa, like a corn meal-based beverage. The chocolate atole is probably the most popular. But atole de teja is a very filling, nourishing breakfast. And it's usually served when there's a lot of family around, like on holidays or funerals and family gatherings and things like this. The matriarch would make a big pot of atole de teja and just... I mean, that'll just stick to your ribs for a few hours.
Tara Ruth: And is there much with the roots, too, or is it more with the aerial parts?
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah, so I haven't really used the roots, but I have found a couple recipes to make a root slaw. But I have to say-
Tara Ruth: Wow, cool.
Mimi Hernandez: ... I haven't gotten that far yet because I was so put off by the bitter leaves. So.
John Gallagher: Wow.
Tara Ruth: Totally understandable.
Mimi Hernandez: But I guess now that we've got this huge patch out there, now would be the time to go out there and poke around and pull up a couple plants-
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Mimi Hernandez: ... and take a nibble of those roots and see what I can come up with. I am a huge kitchen herbalist, so I love cooking. I just love being creative in the kitchen, so it's right up my alley. Also heard people can munch on the stalks like celery sticks. They just chop those root stalks, or the sunflower stalks, and chew on them like celery sticks. But you know, too, there's so many varieties of sunflowers these days and-
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Mimi Hernandez: So it's not... I'm not sure that we're using the same sunflowers that these stories talk-
John Gallagher: Right.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
Mimi Hernandez: Evolved from in Mexico. I'm here to try it all, so I'm really just throwing myself into these cultural foods.
John Gallagher: I admire your courage in just getting out there and trying different things. And I think that sunflower is perfect for people because I don't have to worry about is this going to kill me, or am I going to do something?
Mimi Hernandez: Uh-huh.
John Gallagher: I can dig it up and taste it and see what it's like and use your senses. And you don't have to make something with it. Just be curious. Go out and taste a leaf or taste this different... a flower and see what might this... So that's the thing. That's how we learn, right? Just by doing experimenting.
Mimi Hernandez: Right, right.
Tara Ruth: Totally. This makes me think about Mimi, I met you a few weeks ago at the Wild Herb Weekend-
Mimi Hernandez: That's right.
Tara Ruth: ... conference in North Carolina. And you were talking about prickly pear cactus and you were sharing with us some of the many amazing kitchen creations you had made with prickly pear. One was this beautiful birthday cake, where you'd added prickly pear juice to the frosting.
John Gallagher: Wow.
Tara Ruth: And I'm just wondering if you could share with our listeners a little bit about prickly pear cactus and the medicine of that plant and how you work with that and bring it into your kitchen as well.
Mimi Hernandez: Oh my gosh, I love... I've always loved cactus leaves for food. In my quinceañera, everyone was raving about the cactus strips that were made into this little kind of slaw. And that side dish was so phenomenal. So I've grown up... Just like most Mexican households, they have cactus very regularly, kind of like we would in America have green beans or corn every day. Cactus is just part of your everyday offering. And so growing up, having the cactus salad with my meals was one thing, but then learning how medicinal they are, especially with blood sugar, with helping people regulate their blood sugar and people who are prone to diabetes type 2, so we're talking about the actual cactus leaf, the green portion that has that slime in the middle, that mucilage, and that mucilage really just helps slow down absorption of glucose. And there's lots of studies out there right now discussing that effect. So that's the cactus. And as I recall, when we were in that class we had a couple volunteers who took the time to scrape those spines off and cut around the outside and make it... Because you got to work to get to the cactus.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Mimi Hernandez: Because you don't want to get poked or pricked, but it's worth it. And just eating that cactus leaf is one thing, but then there's the fruits that are so phenomenal.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
Mimi Hernandez: Around my neighborhood, we actually have a native cactus. I live in North Carolina and it's Opuntia humifusa, which is the Eastern Prickly pear. And so I've got a huge stand of it up here on my land, and so I've had all kinds of adventures exploring this cactus. And it yields about five to 10 gallons of cactus fruits, so I've got so many fruits to experiment with here.
John Gallagher: Wow.
Mimi Hernandez: The fruits are edible. Again, you have to get all the little spines off, and I do that by... I make a sand bath. I just have a bucket of sand and these long rubber gloves, and I put every little prickly pear in there and scrub it and scrub all the little glochids off, those little spines, and then put it in a water bath until the skin is really smooth, and then I'm not afraid of them anymore. But yeah, they're really obviously high in those really colorful pigments, those antioxidant pigments. The ones that grow here are really bright fuchsia, and I ferment them. I make wine from them. In Mexico, the traditional ferment is called colonche. So it's just a ferment, which is so delicious. And I make all kinds of things: jellies, juice, infused vinegars, fruit roll ups, you name it.
John Gallagher: [inaudible 00:13:33].
Tara Ruth: Oh my gosh, amazing. Okay.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. I love it.
John Gallagher: So I'm wondering, Mimi, about prickly pear. So say if you wanted to use it for blood sugar issues, do you have to use it fresh, like buying it or harvesting it, or is there other preparations a person can try it to use it for that regularly?
Mimi Hernandez: Right, and so the research that I've seen around this and my favorite research is that research that looks at it alongside your favorite Mexican foods. They'll have people eat Mexican food and then have the cactus on the side. So the studies tend to be on the fresh as a side dish or as a garnish, I should say. And so in America, it's something you might look for in that Mexican aisle of your grocery store where you can find it canned or bottled already cut into strips. And yet, you can find it in... fresh also in some groceries, where they've already scraped all the thorns off, and so then you'd have to be creative. But what you find already canned, I like to put onions and tomatoes and cilantro and just make a little garnish from that. But what you find fresh at the grocery store, if you get the fresh pads you need to dice them up and steam them or saute them or warm them up and then make them with the... Flavor them up or season them however you'd like. But I have seen them also as supplements encapsulated, which is interesting. I would imagine you'd have to take lots of water with them because it is the mucilage-
John Gallagher: Yeah, yeah.
Mimi Hernandez: ... that's really helping you out there. Not everyone likes cactus. I mean, that's something we saw when we did that cactus workshop. But most people were fine with it. Most people were really intrigued.
Tara Ruth: Yeah, it was delicious.
Mimi Hernandez: We munched on it for a little bit, so yeah.
John Gallagher: Yeah. So the fun part about herbs is experimenting and using the actual plant and tasting the plant. So whenever possible, don't go right to capsules. Just try to experience the plant at all possible first.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah. I mean, I definitely prefer the food. I'm really drawn to foods as medicine wherever possible. And when we can use herbs in our food, I think it really synergizes better with the body. The body just seems to assimilate it better.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
Mimi Hernandez: And then in the case of prickly pear, it's all based on the ethnobotany of foods of Mexico and the Southwest, and so I often defer to tradition. How am I going to use it? Well, how did they use it and how did my family... How was I raised using it? So it was as a side dish, so kind of as a little garnish.
John Gallagher: Hey, Tara.
Tara Ruth: Hi, John.
John Gallagher: Do you know what's radical?
Tara Ruth: I don't. Tell me.
John Gallagher: Thomas Easley's radical herbal.
Tara Ruth: That sounds pretty rad.
John Gallagher: But it's not radical. It's radical. Get it? Play on words about root?
Tara Ruth: Oh. Oh my gosh. I see.
John Gallagher: The root of healing. Yeah?
Tara Ruth: Very impressive dad joke there. I like it.
John Gallagher: Well, it's funny you said that because last night, I was hanging out in the kitchen with my daughter and her new boyfriend, and I created a new dad joke on the fly that was so funny, they both laughed.
Tara Ruth: Wow.
John Gallagher: And then both-
Tara Ruth: What was it?
John Gallagher: I know. But what happened was that I followed it up. I was ready to follow it up with the next joke I had in my arsenal. I'm about to say this joke.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: And then my daughter beat me to the punch and said it first, and then it took all the air out of the room with that moment. And I was like, "Oh man, this is a new boyfriend. I wanted to impress him."
Tara Ruth: Gen Z, they're pretty quick on their feet, you know.
John Gallagher: They are, they are. Oh right, so radical. It's very radical. So radical herbal is a new... So Thomas Easley. Okay, so we're talking to Mimi... You know now how we're talking to Mimi Hernandez?
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: And she lives in North Carolina. And coincidentally, so does Thomas Easley.
Tara Ruth: Oh my gosh.
John Gallagher: I know.
Tara Ruth: An herbal hub. Wow.
John Gallagher: It's a hub of herbal... They're all rooted. It's very radical. So if you want to go to North Carolina... And you were just in North Carolina, weren't you?
Tara Ruth: I was just in North Carolina for the first time.
John Gallagher: So where were you at time?
Tara Ruth: Well, I was at the Wild Herb Weekend conference, and that's actually where I met Mimi and heard her talk all about prickly pear cactus and rose and rue and other herbs. So I was like, "She has to be on the pod. She's amazing."
John Gallagher: God, it's all coming together now. Anyway.
Tara Ruth: It truly is, with that intense voice.
John Gallagher: So Thomas, he's a radical herbal. He's a radical, A-C-L-A and an I-C-L-A herbalist. And I was like, "Thomas..." Well, a little background. I had a health issue once and I called Thomas, who has a... You can hire him as a consultant, his clinic. And he gave me this amazing advice and I was like, "We should share this with the Herb Mentor community." So what we did over a couple years, took a little while to get it together but we worked on it slowly, and we are now completed and it's on Herb Mentor. And you can start listening now. Thomas Easley's radical herbal, which is understanding our bodies and the herbs that make them healthy. This isn't some where it like "Hey, I want to cure something. What do I take for my lungs or my GI tract or my immune system?" It's more like "How do my lungs work? How does my immune system and lymphatic system work, the GI tract work? And then what are a few herbs that we can tonify?"
Tara Ruth: Yeah.
John Gallagher: Yeah, yeah.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: So we have 10 audio episodes. Isn't that cool?
Tara Ruth: Very cool. Yeah, they're great. As someone who edited all of them, I learned a lot.
John Gallagher: Oh, so you knew about this?
Tara Ruth: Yeah. It's not a surprise, though I did act very excited. Sorry to mess with our suspension of disbelief here. Yeah, I learned so much from every episode. Even after going to herb school for a few years, Thomas just has such a unique approach and really opened my mind to different ways of thinking about herbalism and deeply-rooted wellness. So I'm excited to listen again honestly.
John Gallagher: Yeah. And sometimes when we're learning about herbs, we read in a plant monograph that let's say astragalus is good for the immune system or lemon balm's good for my nervous system or oat straw. And then you're like, "Well, how did this body system work through the lens of an herbalist?"
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: And that's where this comes in. And you can listen to them just like a podcast. It's just audio, so you can put it on [inaudible 00:20:44] listen to the whole series, one after the other. Oh, putting one out a week, starting in early September. And let's see, what's it bring us through here, Tara? We've got Stressed Out, the nervous system one.
Tara Ruth: Yeah, you bet we do.
John Gallagher: Yeah, yeah.
Tara Ruth: We got some digestive tract episodes. We have one on the upper GI, then we move down to the lower GI.
John Gallagher: Lovely.
Tara Ruth: Yes, love it. We talk about detox pathways and connect the blood, the liver and the kidneys together. I mean, it just goes on and on. And I think about how when I first started learning about plants, like you're saying you just read about lemon balm like, "Oh, this is really good for the nervous system," but it doesn't really come to life until you're working with the plant or seeing the plant in person. And then I think about that for the human body too. I can read a textbook about the human body, but working through Thomas's episodes and really listening to him, it really brought it to life how every body system works together and how those work with the herbs. It was really incredible. It was animating.
John Gallagher: Very animated, yes. And I love our logo. So you have to go and see the Thomas Easley radical herbal logo. And you can see that in Herb Mentor. And Tara, let's see. I think we have a special offer for Herb Mentor Radio listeners. Where do they go again?
Tara Ruth: Oh, yeah. They just go to herbmentorradio.com.
John Gallagher: Yeah. Put that into the old URL browsers on the searchy net there. That's what my daughter calls the internet. It'll bring up a page. Another dad joke. And there's an offer there? Yeah. You could just join right there. And soon as you join on... There are other's courses too: Jim McDonald, Larken Bunce and Todd Caldecott, all kinds of podcast-style video courses. One's Rosemary Gladstar. There's no hurry. You could just work on them and listen and watch as you please. It's all about the adventure on Herb Mentor, right?
Tara Ruth: Absolutely.
John Gallagher: Yes.
Tara Ruth: Ah, such a good adventure to be on honestly.
John Gallagher: Mm, absolutely. So speaking of adventure, let's hear a little more about Mimi Hernandez's adventure.
Tara Ruth: Let's do it.
John Gallagher: That leads to what I'm wondering next. My next question is that you've talked about sunflower, prickly pear, using these in traditional ways. I'd like to hear about how you grew up learning about herbs, because it sounded like you grew up in your family, you have things handed down. Because some people get into herbs later in life or maybe they had a health situation, but you actually have a family lineage, so I'm curious about that.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, I spent... My mother's side of the family is Colombian from Bogota and around the country of Colombia, and my other family side was Mexican. And so I spent a lot of time in Mexico growing up, summers, most holidays or the end of the year holidays, and I had a very elder [foreign language 00:23:49] there who was seen as the local neighborhood healer and especially for kids and just common family issues. And so we'd always get knocks on the door for people who had... Their kid has a cold or someone's constipated or a lot of spiritual concerns. We have a lot of spiritual diseases that my grandmother would look after. And so I wouldn't say that she taught me. I would say that I was just the fly on the wall. I was like her shadow. I just followed her around and watched what she was doing. And she had a little courtyard garden and she would pick herbs as she needed them and pray while she picked them and put them on her altar. She had the altar to the Virgin Mary, as most Mexican households do. And I watched her do several of her kitchen remedies and her tending to the neighborhood children. And so it wasn't until I was a grown up and she had passed away that I realized that I was going to be an herbalist, and so all these memories started coming back of being around my grandmother working with herbs. And so I had not really considered it as some formal education or anything, but it definitely was an influence to me and especially later in life because I had taken such a scientific track of study in my academics and I went to college for biochemistry and I was really kind of a super science person and just really went that route for a while, and there was something about really needing to validate to myself that I could practice herbalism. And I think when I felt confident with the science, then these traditional musings started appearing in my life and bringing me full circle to what I learned from my grandmother and watching her. And that's when I made the decision of really taking a deeper dive into these ancestral herbs and foods and the stories of healing and allowed myself to really live in that space and carry that medicine forward with confidence. So yeah, I never got a chance to tell her that I became an herbalist. That's something I always-
John Gallagher: oh.
Mimi Hernandez: I thought, "What would she think if I told her that?"
John Gallagher: Oh, she would've loved that.
Mimi Hernandez: Oh, I know, I know. Or if I could sit her down and just ask her questions and just say, "Okay, so what'd you do with this? And how'd you do that?" She used rum for all her tinctures and she never really strained them. She just kept adding to them.
John Gallagher: Right. Well, that's interesting.
Mimi Hernandez: Well, yeah. In my practice and in growing up, or at least coming to become a herbal professional, I went through a phase of doing weight of volume ratios for everything, percolation and all that. And then at some point as I approached midlife, I just dialed it way back. And now, I'm just wild-crafted, wild folk medicine. If it worked for my grandma and she didn't ever measure anything, this'll work for me. But that's at least how I practice with my family and my household. So.
John Gallagher: Yeah, how does that affect your teaching? So you learn all these scientific methods, and people might come to you and want to learn these. I mean, do you teach that and then circle back and say, "Hey, it's about folk herbalism," or do you just say, "You know what? I'm going to teach you what I'm actually doing, how I'm living and what my culture is"?
Mimi Hernandez: Uh-huh. That's such a great question. I think that it seems to be either or, because I'm the herbalist that people seek out to teach phytochemistry and herbal solvency and things like that, or I could teach you about spiritual diseases of Latin American curanderismo. And so it's one or the other, and I'm more and more finding the way to blend those in. So especially if I'm teaching to a general herbal class about phytochemistry and we're talking about [inaudible 00:28:19] making and... I went through all the science of it and all the details and then I'm like, "Okay, but if this doesn't align with you, just go folk."
John Gallagher: Right.
Mimi Hernandez: So yeah. I'm definitely become more folk because I grow older and wiser. But like I said, I don't work with clients right now, so this is more for my family and my neighbors and myself. So yeah.
Tara Ruth: Hearing you talk about diving more into folk herbalism and talking about kitchen herbalism, whether it's the prickly pear cactus wine that you made or the frosting, I'm thinking about people who might be listening and they're excited about herbalism. And maybe they're reading the books, they're doing all the things, they're studying it from a scientific perspective, or they're just really intimidated and don't know how to start. I'm curious, do you have tips for people who just want to bring herbs into their kitchen and just start really building relationships with those plants and bringing them into their home?
Mimi Hernandez: Mm. Mm-hmm. I guess maybe a couple tips. My first idea would be to expand the colorful offerings of what's on your plate every day. And so this doesn't always have to be herbs, but it does start to sharpen the conscious toward those foods that provide vitality and longevity and antioxidant foods. They're all based on color, and so if you can start by just really taking assessment of what your plate looks like and what kind of colors... Add the reds and the blues and the purples. And then also, when you... Everyone says, "Drink lots of water." Well, I like to drink water that's pink or blue or purple or red. I put a little hibiscus in my water or some blueberries in your water or some just, I don't know, prickly pear juice, palm juice, just things like that, that bring more color into your diet. But also, I think just gardening and even container gardening, because when I... I just turned 50 years old, and it wasn't till about a year and a half ago that I got my first house with property basically. Well, my first house ever that I wasn't renting, and so I know what it's like-
John Gallagher: Wow.
Mimi Hernandez: ... to be a renter my whole life and not be able to garden. So I got really good at container gardening, and some of these culinary herbs like basil and oregano and sage and lemon balm and lemongrass and thyme, I mean these are really easy to grow in containers and just put fresh herbs on your salads, on your soups, make pesto.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Mimi Hernandez: Pesto from fresh herbs is one of the best things you can do. And those fresh herbs, really they're so antioxidant and they're so... just give you so much nourishing goodness. And they're also help you prevent colds. And if you're not feeling great, they can perk you up. And so having a little kitchen garden, even if it's just in containers, is really fun, and then you get to know every little herb one at a time. I never started things from seeds until I had my garden here, but I would just either get plants from friends or from a nursery, and then they just take off in your containers. And some of them come back year after year. It's like what?
John Gallagher: [inaudible 00:32:10].
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Mimi Hernandez: And then learn to make tea from some of these. Again, like I said, I don't like drinking plain water, so tea is... Infusions are included in that. So I would snip some lemon balm leaves and make a lemon balm infusion for the day. Or what I have going right now, right now what's popping in my garden is holy basil and now Thai basil, which I've never used, but it's such a wonderful tea. It just tastes goods.
Tara Ruth: Yeah, it tastes good.
John Gallagher: Yeah, like a tisane and keep it-
Mimi Hernandez: Yes.
John Gallagher: ... in the refrigerator. Yeah.
Mimi Hernandez: Yes. Yeah. I call it house tea, and so it's just... I always have a pitcher of tea in the house, and it's just from whatever. It's not for any-
John Gallagher: House tea.
Mimi Hernandez: It's not for any specific condition. It's just to have tea in the house.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Mimi Hernandez: So this week, it's holy basil and Thai basil. Who knows what it'll be next week? I'll just go putz around and see what draws me or calls me.
John Gallagher: Mimi's mystery house tea.
Mimi Hernandez: Yes.
John Gallagher: Mimi's tea of mystery. I'm always trying to come up with the packaging here for the-
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
Mimi Hernandez: I like that, I like that.
Tara Ruth: Well, I love those herbs that you named, too, just for having a container garden. That right there is a whole home apothecary.
Mimi Hernandez: It is.
Tara Ruth: All these culinary herbs.
Mimi Hernandez: It is. Mm-hmm.
Tara Ruth: Absolutely, that just have so many healing gifts.
Mimi Hernandez: Oh, I was going to say I love infused vinegars. If I'm ever like, "What should I do with this? Vinegar." Because, I mean, that's just nothing more than putting fresh herb leaves. If you like the herb, you'll love vinegar. So just put the fresh herb leaves in a mason jar and top it off with apple cider vinegar and shake it. And a few days, later strain it and there you go. So I use that for salad dressings, for marinades, for just drinking it by the spoonful here and there. But I love vinegar, so that's my go-to of just putting herbs-
Tara Ruth: Awesome.
Mimi Hernandez: ... in vinegar and then getting a little bit every day.
Tara Ruth: Yeah.
John Gallagher: Mimi was talking about now she's... You have this land.
Mimi Hernandez: Yes.
John Gallagher: [inaudible 00:34:27]... had containers. I've had that situation, too, where I moved a lot. I moved plants around. And now you have this... You're working on a native plant sanctuary.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: Is that on your land that you're doing that?
Mimi Hernandez: It is, it is.
John Gallagher: So what exactly is a native plant sanctuary and yeah, why you doing this? This sounds great.
Mimi Hernandez: Right, because I live in Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains and there's just such an abundance of really beautiful plants here. And some of them are world famous, like ginseng and black cohosh and goldenseal and plants like that, and what I see is a lot of people either coming through as tourists and poaching all the plants and then going to sell them somewhere else or a lot of just commercial development that's just taking out habitat left and right, or even for medicinal plants, a lot of overharvesting happening. And so some of these plants, I feel, need are protection. And it's not just for the medicine. It's also for the pollinators in the area, for the butterflies. Monarchs come through here, and I care about them and the honeybees. So the plant sanctuary, there's a area of my land that is strictly devoted to protecting native plants. So that's a native plant sanctuary. And my goal is to become a member of the United Plant Savers' native plant sanctuary network, Botanical Sanctuary Network is what they call it, and so just to ensure a habitat for our native animals and native species because I also grow in a area where kudzu is prolific. And if you haven't-
John Gallagher: Right.
Mimi Hernandez: ... heard of kudzu, I mean it can... It's like this giant vine that doesn't have any competitors here, and it just takes over huge portions of neighborhoods. It's here in my county. And so I'm, fortunately, have only had to pull out a little bit from my property and so I'm actually kudzu free right now, but I've got a ton of Japanese honeysuckle that just cover the entire forest floor.
Tara Ruth: Oh my God.
Mimi Hernandez: And I know people love honeysuckle. It smells pretty and it tastes good and it's medicine in itself. But when it takes over the whole forest floor, there's-
John Gallagher: Right.
Mimi Hernandez: ... hundreds of species that are being choked out. And so I would love to just have the woods that I look after be my energy directed to restoring them to their natural habitat. And it's been such a beautiful process to watch that because over the past year and a half, I've cleared so much honeysuckle. And in its place, I've seen yellowroot flourish, horsemint, native trilliums, azaleas. I mean, it's just so many.
Tara Ruth: Wow.
Mimi Hernandez: I've got lots of black cohosh here. I've been working on goldenseal, reintroducing it back to the habitat here, and it's just been such a beautiful process to watch. I have a pond, too, a small pond. And when I moved in, the former owner had mowed all around the pond all the way to the water's edge and so it was nothing but just a lawn, basically, around a pond. So one thing that I did is started rewilding the pond, the edge, just a couple feet around the edge, and I've got cardinal flowers and St. John's wort and-
John Gallagher: Oh.
Mimi Hernandez: ... boneset and just all these amazing native-
John Gallagher: Wow.
Mimi Hernandez: ... plants that are coming back in. And with that, I see dragonflies now everywhere just flittering around, and the fish are really happy. So yeah, it's just been really beautiful to watch. And it really has been a dream of mine to honor the land not just for myself, but for the ancestors who stewarded this land before me and for the future generations that will be on this land. And it's just because I felt so grateful that I was finally able to buy a house and it happened to have land, so I wanted to practice reciprocity of that gift. So.
John Gallagher: That's wonderful.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah, it's been fun.
John Gallagher: Reciprocity, rewilding, regeneration, resilience, restoration, that are R words that could be-
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: That's beautiful.
Mimi Hernandez: Now, I do have giant gardens too. You were just saying something about how you know what it's like to live out of little container gardens and stuff. Well, I went from one end of the spectrum to the other because this year, we've got three massive gardens. I thought, "Oh, I hope we have such an abundant summer of produce and vegetables and flowers and herbs." Just a few weeks ago, I was like, "I am so burned out." I have got so much tomatoes, green beans, okra, just you name it and it's like I'm swimming in, oh, zucchini and yellow squash and pumpkins and cucumbers. And it's great, but I didn't think about the other side of that equation. You have to be ready to work with this food. You have to be ready to do something or else you're gonna-
Tara Ruth: Yes.
Mimi Hernandez: Or have people to hand it off to. And so just baskets and baskets of produce [inaudible 00:40:19]. So now, I'm learning all about canning, fermenting, dehydrating, freezing, pureeing, just tincturing and-
John Gallagher: Wow.
Mimi Hernandez: So it's like I can't. If we do this again next year, we have to get some [inaudible 00:40:34] or some-
John Gallagher: Yeah, you do. Yeah.
Mimi Hernandez: Some live-in support or an apprentices or something because yeah, it's-
John Gallagher: Well, you might get some interest off the podcast.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah, hit me up if you... Oh, yeah.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: [inaudible 00:40:43] just get in touch with Mimi if you want to-
Mimi Hernandez: We have RV-
John Gallagher: ... live in North Carolina on her land.
Mimi Hernandez: That's right. We have RV hookups, so come on down.
John Gallagher: Ample parking day and night.
Mimi Hernandez: Yes, I'll put you to work. I'll put you to work in the kitchen and on the land. So yeah, it was like went from one extreme to the other. I'm sure there's a balanced middle ground there that I'm looking for eventually. I got really gung ho. So.
Tara Ruth: I mean, that's so exciting to have this space that you can steward, so I can just imagine being like, "Yes, we're going to put all this food in." And then when late summer hits, yeah for sure.
Mimi Hernandez: Yeah. It's like what were we thinking? I'm eating okra every single day, which I can't complain about that.
Tara Ruth: So much mucilage. Great.
Mimi Hernandez: Yes, yes.
Tara Ruth: I'm wondering, too, with your native plant sanctuary, is this a space that you want to share with the public or is this, going to be just more for "This is about the plants and tending the land specifically"? Yeah, how do you envision the space moving forward?
Mimi Hernandez: That is a great question. And one of the things about becoming a member of the Botanical Sanctuary Network is that United Plant Savers would like to see that you're providing some sort of education based on your work with the land. And so I feel that eventually, I would love to have a educational trail just to walk that path because I love giving herb walks anyways, so herb walks is the most ideal way I think of doing that. I dream of having a yurt with a community center and having little classes in there and teaching people about how to propagate and how to support these plants or how to work with invasive plants. And so yeah, that's part of the dream, so we'll see about that. I haven't welcomed people there yet outside of the family but yeah, I'm excited about the potential for that possibility.
John Gallagher: Speaking of new projects, you will have an herbal coming out next year by National Geographic. Tell us a little bit about that. That sounds really cool. Is that like a field guide or an herbal book or...
Mimi Hernandez: It is. It's a herbal, and so not necessarily a field guide and not necessarily a cookbook, because I want to do a cookbook one day, but it's just 99 plants from around the world and we have nine chapters. And each chapter is followed by a highlight of different herbal traditions. So we have Ayurveda and Chinese medicine and then some more traditions that haven't received a lot of attention like curanderismo, which is the Latin American folk healing, and the Gullah Geechee herbal ways, which a lot of Gullah Geechee community is out here on the outer banks of the East Coast, the Southeast. And so yes, highlighting different traditions. There's Celtic herbalism and... But most of the book does highlight attention to conservation and attention to ethical practices. So it's not an invitation to go out and pick all these herbs in the wild. It's more just teaching people about how to respect these herbs and the cultures they come from, but also just telling their medicinal qualities and what they look like in the field and where they come from and what herbalists use from. One thing I did try to do in this book is center the herbalist because a lot of herbals out there aren't really from the perspective of herbalists.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
Mimi Hernandez: So I try to bring that into the conversation of "Well, the clinical herbalist might use it this way or a folk herbalist might look at it this way or a kitchen herbalist might want to be creative and do this." So I'm trying to talk about different herbal pathways. Yeah, it's just a overview of 99 plants, and it's been really fun. It's different for me. I never considered myself a really good writer.
John Gallagher: Oh.
Mimi Hernandez: And unless it's scientific writing or writing... Because I used to write a lot of music and, well, that's another story. But I can write lyrics, but not-
John Gallagher: Okay.
Mimi Hernandez: I don't know. In my tradition, we are more of storytellers. And I find that when I teach herbal medicine, I'm always telling stories about either how I work with an herb or how I learned this from my teachers or that day when we were up on the mountain and I encountered this herb, and so this is very different because it's more of a reference book. So I'm not writing from the first person, and that was my biggest challenge up front, is to put it in the public comments of speaking to it in third person was a little bit of a challenge for me. I was like, "Well, if I can't tell my stories, what am I going to say?"
John Gallagher: Right.
Mimi Hernandez: But it was fun, and I even learned a lot just in stringing these sentences together. It's been an interesting process.
Tara Ruth: Wow. And you said that comes out next year?
Mimi Hernandez: Uh-huh. Yep. I think October OF November of '23.
Tara Ruth: Great. Well, our listeners will have to keep an eye out because that sounds like-
Mimi Hernandez: Oh, yeah.
Tara Ruth: ... a really important book to have on hand.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm.
Tara Ruth: Thank you so much for writing it.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm.
Tara Ruth: Well, Mimi, another big thing that you do as an herbalist is that you're the executive director of the American Herbalists Guild.
Mimi Hernandez: Uh-huh.
Tara Ruth: And I'm just curious. For folks who may not know what the American Herbalists Guild is and how to get involved, can you tell us a little bit about the American Herbalists Guild and the work that y'all do?
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm. Sure. So I have been the executive director of the American Herbalists Guild for about 10 years, and it is a nonprofit organization that advocates for clinical herbalist and other herbalists, just herbalism in general, and for the plants. But one of the things we do is we provide educational standards and educational materials for people who are interested in becoming an herbalist. And we do an annual symposium. We've been doing this for... This is our 33rd year, and the symposium this year is taking place in Bethesda, Maryland. And so that's exciting and also a little bit like, "Okay, are we ready for this?" Because we've been... Everyone's gone remote for the past couple of years, so we're going to-
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mimi Hernandez: We're going to try do this in-person experience while also having some online aspects to this event. A lot of our work is centered around giving resources to people who work as herbalists or work in the herbal field, so that could be sample consent disclosure forms or how to... Just business skills, for instance, on how to set yourself up as an herbalist. We just try to help. And it's just a staff of six people. There's only two full-time staff. But most of all, we're membership based, so people can join the American Herbalists Guild. Anyone can join. You don't have to be an herbalist.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm. And everyone can go to americanherbalistsguild.org, right? And-
Mimi Hernandez: dot com. Uh-huh, yes.
John Gallagher: Dot com? Dot com, okay.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: Didn't know if it was org or a com.
Mimi Hernandez: uh-huh.
John Gallagher: And a lot of information there. And try to... Conferences are a great place to find your mentors and teachers.
Mimi Hernandez: Mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: You meet so many great people and see what they're doing. And any conferences or events going on around you are awesome to do. So Mimi Hernandez, thank you so much for joining us today on Herb Mentor Radio. And just to remind everybody, @HerbalForager on Instagram, herbalnightschool.com. And yeah, it's been just wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
Tara Ruth: Yeah, thank you.
Mimi Hernandez: Oh yeah, thanks for having me. This was fun.
John Gallagher: Herb Mentor Radio is written and produced by John Gallagher and Tara Ruth. Sound engineering by Zach Frank. Visit herbmentorradio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and for information on how to be part of Herb Mentor, your home for herbal education. Herb Mentor Radio is a production of learningherbs.com, LLC. All writes reserved. Thank you so much for listening.
