I remember the first time I had a chance to get to know wild fennel. It was growing tall and wild behind an empty lot I walked through every day on my way to work at an Italian restaurant in the Viaduct harbour in Auckland, New Zealand. It’s funny to look back on that period in my life and realize that I have a clearer memory of the walk to work than the job itself. This is simply because those fennel plants were so delighted to have me walk through them every day. I inhaled in their aromatic sunshine on the way to work in the morning and felt supported by their feathery touch on my way home at night, exhausted. Fennel also grows tall and vibrant on the hills of Wellington, where I lost myself in fragrant forests of fennel and laid on my back looking up at the golden umbels and the busy orgasmic humming of the bees collecting the fennel nectar.