Why we keep a journal

Dear reader,

This is the first issue of Christiane's Journal, and before we talk about the first plant, I want to tell you why our family keeps a journal at all.

My mother Christiane wrote for Austrian cooking, housekeeping and gardening publications in the 1980s. Those contributions are an inspiration for our journal. Following plants through the seasons, in the garden and in the kitchen, takes attention and patience. That is the spirit we hope to continue, in our own words and under our own names. This journal is not a reconstructed archive, and it does not speak in her voice.

Why a journal? Because it has a rhythm. It returns, issue after issue, as an old almanac returns year after year, gaining depth each time. We want to give you something you are glad to return to: a library to consult and a companion through the seasons.

We deliberately keep our plans for each issue focused. A plant to look at closely. Practical ideas for the kitchen and garden. Room for what is known about a plant and for the questions that remain open. The seasons belong here too, because plants follow light, warmth and soil. Elderberry ripens in late summer, so we begin with it. This first issue is our invitation.

We are a small family workshop in Austria, and we want that to come through in this journal. The kitchen and garden belong here alongside research. Our aim is to put studies carefully in context and name their sources. Personal experience should be clearly recognisable as such.

It matters to me just as much to tell you what this journal will never be.

We write about plants, their history, their uses in the kitchen and their botany. Medical promises have no place here. Where the evidence is thin or contradictory, that is part of the story. We want to encourage curiosity rather than stir up fear. And we want to make clear what a statement rests on: research, tradition or personal experience. A good story alone is not evidence.

That is the care we want to bring to this work. It takes time and sometimes the patience to leave a question open. It is the standard I have in mind when I put my name to these pages.

Because that is what I am doing here, on purpose. These lines carry my name, not my mother's. She gave us that approach. The work is ours now: mine, my family's, and that of the people who write and check this journal with us.

What I hope for is simple. That at the end of every issue you know something you did not know before, and that you feel someone has taken the time to speak to you with care. No more than that, and nothing less.

I am glad you are here. Let us begin with elderberry.

Warmly,

Stephan Rauch