[phatch]

For serving to guests, remove. I usually leave them in when I'm cooking at home. My wife started a tradition with the kids of whoever gets the bay leaf gets a wish. So now they all want bay leaves.

You can remove the stem and powder them in a grinder/mortar & pestle or even buy them powdered though they lose flavor fast. Some charcuterie uses this and some times I use a bit of ground bay as a final correction in a soup or stew.