This portrait is incredible.
All the detail.
The flowers are so beautiful.
And Speaking of flowers,
we recently came across a cookbook that
combines the beauty of flowers with all
sorts of cooking in each Your flowers.
Author Lauria Stern does more
than toss them on a salad.
Eat Your Flowers is a book about using
botanicals in all sorts of dishes,
whether that's your morning scone,
your granola.
Your salad, but not just on top,
it's incorporating them into the dressing.
The book is also about edible colorants,
so using all natural colorants
in order to make foods that are
often not so bright and beautiful,
bright and beautiful.
So for instance,
like a Key Lime Pie which is normally in
beige in the background or or yellowish,
adding these natural colorants
like butterfly.
Pea powder or Raspberry powder
will turn your pie into a
brightly colored beautiful dish.
The
book in and of itself is beautiful.
It just it's it's a gorgeous book to look at,
but it also explains what you can
use and where to find these things.
Can you share some key tips and maybe the
flowers and herbs you use most often?
I like to use a lot of different
edible flowers and herbs.
Some of them are more accessible than others.
Here in Los Angeles, where I am right now,
there are plenty of forgeable edibles
such as yellow mustard that's lining
all of our hills at the moment.
That's an edible flower.
There's also nasturtiums,
which come in a range of
different colors as kalanchulas.
So these are all edible flowers
that I love to use That's
growing in my backyard and.
You know, they're also growing wild, so
and California, from what I
understand is having a super bloom.
So go have a field day,
but don't pick the poppies.
You know what happens
when you pick the poppies.
Do not pick the poppies unless
they're on private property,
unless they're on your land,
then it's not illegal.
You have several dishes that you
really show this beauty off with.
First is your shortbread
cookies that really made you
a name in the cooking world.
And I understand you have
those with you right now.
I sure do. Amity.
Here they are our beautiful flower cookies.
I don't know if you can see these,
but each with a different edible flower.
We sell these on my website
eatyourflowers.com and you know,
I started making these and
posting them on Instagram and
they essentially went viral.
So now I have a baking company.
Employees, and we are shipping
our treats nationally. So
good for you.
I mean, they're so beautiful.
They're a work of art through nature.
And I think that's what so many of us
connect with when it comes to your baking it.
It's just really just really beautiful.
You also have something called a citrine pie.
You have that with you as well.
Will you tell us how you
get that vibrant color?
I sure do. Here is my cream pie.
It's the recipe in the cookbook.
It has. A delicious salty gram
crust that is obsession worthy.
And the custard itself is just
a basic Key Lime Pie custard.
But what I do is I sprinkle butterfly
key powder into the custard,
whisk it all together and then
put it in the tart shell and then
I decorate with edible flowers.
So in this case I have some edible
Daisy chrysanthemum flowers topped.
Then I bake the pie,
chill it and it's good to go and
delicious so and it's also show stopping.
It's pretty pretty
it's it's true. I mean it where everything
you have is it's very show stopping.
So Loria really inspired us
with all the things she made.
And by us, I mean producer Susie,
who made cookies for us because
we really just want to be cookies.
So you made these beautiful flour,
fresh shortbread cookies.
How did you. How hard is this?
So it wasn't as hard as I thought.
You know, I was pouring over it.
It is basically a shortbread cookie.
So I followed her recipes and saw
and made the shortbread dough.
And then we just get to be creative.
And so I I bought these botanical,
all these flowers from I think
gourmet sweet botanicals it's called.
You can also find them in
some grocery stores.
You have to buy them from the grocery can
I just pick them out of my garden can.
And actually her book has a whole
list of what you can eat and
all that kind of stuff you can.
I just it was just easier to no
I'm just okay but yes you can
these are violas which are around
you could get Pansy little Daisy.
So here's what we're going to do.
All we do is we have this
shortbread dough and can just.
I'm just doing these three inch rounds and
then you could just start decorating them,
the flowers.
OK And then they're going to bake.
So go for it. OK.
So I just take a flower. Yeah.
And I got even some herbs like thyme.
Do you push it in?
You can just press it a little bit, but
we'll press it right before we put them in.
The actual reason,
it's kind of like creating your own art.
I kind of always think it's interesting.
I mean, I think flowers are fun and
they're pretty when people cook with them.
But I also am like, really?
I mean, our flowers are.
The core of food, right.
I really like, you know,
I don't like this piece of thyme.
You can obviously eat all of these after
a little microflower tastes a little bit.
I'll try a flower.
That one tastes a little bit peppery.
Some of them taste more floral or citrus,
some of them not so good.
I mean, honestly,
it just tasted like eating a flower.
Yeah.
And that one had a little bit of
a like a flower like aspect to it.
Yeah, it's so bad.
It's very, very beautiful though.
Yeah.
And all you're going to do.
You should try a cookie,
but all you're going to do when you're
done creating is put your paper back on,
roll it a little bit to press them,
and then you're going to freeze
them for about the paper on okay.
Freeze them,
freeze them for about 24 hours because
that will then when you bake them in
a hot oven and it'll keep them bright,
like these colors.
These are beautiful.
They really are beautiful and
they are delicious.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh,
this is really good sharp bread.
It is good sharp bread.
And that's what really matters,
is the cookie.
And then you have a pretty design.
You have a pretty design.
Alright, Fabulous.
This is great.