“Rosemary is a smell I come across often, and one that warms me somehow. I cook with it: roasted nuts with rosemary, roast lamb and rosemary, roast vegetables and rosemary. It’s neither a happy nor a sad smell, now, but the sprigs worked their intended magic: I remember. Rosemary is a smell of hope and sadness, grief and change and new lives, old lives, lives that will never be the same.”

Sam Van Zweden, Eating with My Mouth Open. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing (2021)