Photo: Ingolf Hatz/Getty Images/Cultura RF When I started simmering herbs on the stove, my husband and I were already in a silent war about the bath towels I’d rolled up and shoved under the cracks of the front and back doors, convinced it made a difference. He would kick them out of the way to open the door when he took out the trash or got the mail, and I would rush to put them back in a huff.
That threat has passed — at least in my neighborhood in Portland, for now — but the smoke is so thick that the air is off-the-charts hazardous and seeping inside. Our eyes burn and our throats feel like they do on the first day of a cold. I can hear my husband’s coughing fits from behind the closed door of the room where he tries to work. Our 2-year-old son’s little voice is scratchy, like he’s hoarse from screaming or illness.
We have a giant rosemary bush in our otherwise-lovely backyard, and while I think of this plant as a nuisance, and rosemary in general as too niche of an herb, I was suddenly grateful it existed. When friends on the East Coast checked in on us, I texted them a photo of the rosemary peeking out from the big pot of water, as though the kitchen scene’s domesticity could prove that we had everything under control.
The minor relief rosemary granted turned out to be short-lived: On Tuesday, the Washington State Department of Health debunked herb simmering, which, it turns out, has the potential to do more harm than good. I turned off the burner of the stove, glad I’d chosen a lesser herb as my placebo, because I never want to smell rosemary again. The sun is still an eerie orange, hidden by a cloud of smoke.
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