Bob Simons 1953-1999

Urtica dioica L.

Bob loved stinging nettles -- eating them, wearing them, fertilising them, everything except being repeatedly stung by them.

For the celebration of Bob's life at Fulford Hall on 20 March 1999, Catherine silkscreened about a hundred t-shirts with Bob's stinging nettle design. I'm wearing one of them right now as I write this.

Some of the things Bob made from nettles included:

• soup
• stew
• broth ("oyster soup")
• aspic
• pesto
• dip
• pâté
• soufflé
• spanakopita
• pasta
• Christmas bread (beet- and nettle-coloured doughs braided together)
• pizza (in two main varieties: with nettles in the flour and with nettle purée substituting for tomatoes in the topping)
• muffins
• bread
• nettle cake with salal berry icing
• rope (and he even wove a nettle hat from it).