HOME & DECORTheEpochTimes 39junE 20 – juLY 3, 2014

By Marieke Vos Epoch Times Staff

Does sage grow abundantly in your garden? According to old English and French folk-lore this means either busi-

ness is thriving or the lady is rul-ing the house-hold (or both, of course!). But sage is best known for its healing proper-ties.

The ancients wondered: “Cur Moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto?” (Why should one die whilst sage grows in his garden?). The English say: “He that would live for aye [forever], must eat sage in May.” A French proverb specifies, “Sage helps the nerves and by its powerful might, palsy is cured and fever put to

f light.” The French also believe the plant helps one who is grieving. Sa lv ia , the

genus of s a ge , i s derived f rom the

Latin sa l-vere meaning

“to be well, to be healthy, or to be

saved”. It is also some-times called S. Salvatrix,

“sage the saviour”. A biblical leg-end says that when Mary f led the soldiers of Herod with the baby Jesus, they could shelter with the sage and not under the wild rose or the stock gillyf lower. Mary, thankful, then blessed the f lower with its medicinal powers.

The plant is also said to pro-tect against the underworld

and, according to old traditions, rue must be planted in between sage

plants to keep

away noxious toads.Native Americans use white sage in

offerings and they use the smoke for purification.

The Chinese traded sage for green tea in a ratio of 3 to 1.

You can also make tea with sage, or it can be used in brewing beer, in country wines, as a preservative in cheese, or on dark bread with butter.

The hundreds of varieties of aromatic sage come in all sizes and colours and have a long season of bloom. Apart from it’s legendary kitchen use, the plant is thus also a nice aesthetic addition to the garden.

Sage tea

Burning sage

ShutterStock

ShutterStock

Learn More About Its Uses and Fascinating History

Growing Sage?

The celebration of food culture inevitably helps to promote the kitchen to take centre stage within homes. The design brief from one owner of a maisonette unit called for a spacious open kitchen that integrated with the other spaces in the unit, forming a large space for frequent social gatherings. In this project, the kitchen no longer served as just a space for food preparation, but it was also where entertainment took place. We designed the kitchen to be fac-ing the entrance, and beside it a lounge space for guests and relax-ation. Instead of the living room, the guests would be greeted by the open kitchen and the lounge as they entered the unit. In this

instance, guests linger and inter-act around the kitchen and the lounge space and may never need to proceed further into the living room, negating the living as the main space traditionally used for receiving guests (refer to Photo 4 and 5).

We always find inspiration when we design in response to the differ-ent lifestyles, inclinations and per-sonalities of home owners, and the results always materialise in bet-ter design solutions for the occu-pants. With that, we will share more on the specifics of kitchen design, and on responding to dif-ferent needs and essential design considerations for kitchens in our next write-up.

courteSy of Atelier M+A

courteSy of Atelier M+A

Atelier M+A89B Tanjong Pagar RoadTel: 6222 4405www.atelier-ma.comma@atelier-ma.com

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Sage

fotioliA

The English say: “He that would live for aye [forever], must eat sage in May.”