Celebrity Chef Prepares Italian Dishes, Signs Books Columbus Day Weekend

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Risotto with Winter Squash and Shrimp
Risotto alla Zucca e Gamberi
By Lidia Bastianich, chef, acclaimed cookbook author, and restaurateur

Makes 6 generous servings

Ingredients
1 pound small shrimp (about 35–40 per pound)
1 pound butternut squash or pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup minced onions
2 tablespoons minced shallots
2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
½ cup dry white wine
6 ½ cups hot vegetable stock or water
1/2 teaspoon salt, or as needed
1/2 cup chopped scallions, greens included (about 6), plus additional garnish if desired
Pinch of ground nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
Freshly ground black pepper
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Pumpkins will be center stage this month: at The Edible Garden Conservatory Kitchen, at a brand new display during Halloween Hoorah in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, in the Pumpkin Patch across from the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, and in a special showcase of champion giant pumpkins.

This weekend (October 2–3) don’t miss Classy Parker of Just Food and Jason Weiner of Almond restaurants whip up dishes with pumpkins (and potatoes, too!).

Columbus Day Weekend (October 9–11) brings more pumpkins and cooking with kids at a harvest celebration featuring celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich, crafts, tasty treats, and music.

Halloween Hoorah begins October 9—and runs all the way through October 31—treating visitors to a frightfully fun journey through a setting of hundreds of jack-o’-lanterns, parades, cider pressing, and more. Get a sneak peek of the spectacle, and learn about Michael Anthony Natiello, the artist who created the pumpkin sculptures.

The Pumpkin Patch has been growing all season, and now’s the time to see it at its best.

Some of the winning pumpkins from the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth weigh-ins will be at the Garden beginning October 22—last year a world record of 1,725 pounds was set! Bring your camera for great photo ops.

So make sure to “carve out” some family time to come to Garden this month. It’s so fun, it’s scary.

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Chef Stephanie Inspired by Childhood Influences and Using Herbs

Chef Stephanie is executive chef at Don Coqui. She will present a cooking demonstration at The Edible Garden Conservatory Kitchen on Saturday, September 25, at 1p.m. as part of Fiesta de Flores y Comida.

Having grown up on a farm in Indiana, the process of growing my own produce is basically genetically linked. I come from a long line of “farm women”: My mother, Linda, and both my grandmothers worked the farm and prepared fabulous meals from its bounty to nourish our family. Nothing makes me happier than going to the garden, plucking from the vine or stalk what’s at its peak, and cooking it up simply to create a gourmet meal.

I started gathering from the garden at an early age. When I was five years old, I would get up early to cook breakfast for my parents, first gathering produce to incorporate into my scrambles. My mother and father would awaken to breakfast in bed—and a HUGE mess from my “creations” waiting for them in the kitchen. Not much has changed except now I have a staff to help with cleaning.

Now as a chef living just outside New York City, the land, space, and time isn’t available for me to grow my own crops. Local farmers markets have replaced the need to grow crops for the freshest of ingredients. It’s refreshing to know where the food on your plate comes from, too. Farmers markets are the best! I am a big advocate in supporting local farms. I always try to create from the best the season has to offer. read more »

Every day during The Edible Garden: Growing and Preparing Good Food cooking demonstrations are presented at the Conservatory Kitchen, a special place set up on the lawn in front of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

It’s a wonderful way to see your favorite chefs in person in action—often creating original dishes. You can take notes during the demos, but you can save time by looking up the recipes on the Garden’s Web site, where they are posted the week following the event.

So impress your friends and family by whipping up some of these seasonal, delicious inventions. Bon appétit.

With cooking demonstrations every day, a Greenmarket filled with regional foods, a festival honoring Hispanic Heritage Month, and other food-related programming during The Edible Garden, the Botanical Garden is the place to be to kick off and participate in Eat Drink Local Week.

This second annual celebration of local foods is more than a restaurant week—and it’s more than a week! From September 26 through October 6, this statewide event co-produced by Edible magazines and GrowNYC, is a time to get to know your neighborhood markets and area farmers.

Wine tastings, lectures, garden tours, farm-to-table dinners, and many other events, including edible programming at the Botanical Garden, will be held throughout New York during Eat Drink Local Week.

The Garden’s Fiesta de Flores y Comida Weekend, September 25 and 26, features flowers, food, dancing, cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs, home gardening demonstrations, food and wine tastings, cookbook signings, and family activities.

Get your tickets today, and be part of the fun.

And on Tuesday, Mingle with Martha at a Champagne Cocktail Party

The Garden’s newly renovated Lillian and Amy Goldman Stone Mill will be open to the public again this Saturday and Sunday for a second and final weekend. Visitors can view the landmark building and tour the Stone Mill precinct, which is one of the largest, most varied historic landscapes in New York City and the Lower Hudson Valley.

In addition, this weekend visitors also can delight in cooking demos and fall activities for families as part of The Edible Garden as well as enjoy A Season in Poetry and more (details below)! You’ll also want to save the date Tuesday, September 21, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. to mingle with Martha Stewart at a Champagne Cocktail Party in the Garden. read more »

Kip Wilcox is a chef at Moosewood Restaurant. She will present cooking demonstrations at The Edible Garden Conservatory Kitchen on Saturday, September 18, at 1 and 3 p.m. and will sign copies of her book, Sweetness and Light, following each demonstration.

Fennel is not exactly a household word. Indigenous to the Mediterranean, it is gaining greater visibility on the shelves of supermarkets and in the stalls of farmers markets on this side of the Atlantic. Often labeled with the misnomer sweet anise, a fennel bulb looks a bit like short, broad, greenish-hued, tightly packed stalks of celery with delicate leaves reminiscent of dill. In fact, fennel is a relative of anise and dill as well as cumin, cilantro, and caraway. As an ingredient in cooking, both the fennel bulb and seeds have many of us stumped: How do you slice it or cook the bulb? What does it taste like? What kinds of dishes can include fennel? How do you use the seeds?

There are two kinds of edible fennel. Common fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a hardy perennial herb that grows in the wild and is invasive in Mediterranean climates. It reaches about five feet tall with wispy leaves and beautiful yellow flowers that produce greenish-brown seed-like fruits. Its taproot is long and tenacious, not something you would want to eat. The oil from common fennel’s seeds has been used for centuries as a digestive, diuretic, cough suppressant, soothing eyewash, and breath freshener. read more »

The Edible Garden Cooking Demos, Ballet Among the Blooms, and More!

Be among the first to take an inside look at the newly restored Lillian and Amy Goldman Stone Mill, a New York City Landmark and National Historic Landmark built in 1840. In collaboration with The New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Garden is offering guided tours of the restored Stone Mill and surrounding landscape. Take a Tram tour of gardens and collections in the 100-acre Stone Mill Precinct, walk along the Bronx River with guides from the Bronx River Alliance, and visit the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden in fall bloom. Enjoy live music on the terrace above the picturesque Bronx River gorge. Don’t miss this first of two weekend opportunities to view the beautifully restored space.

Stone Mill Ongoing Tours
Saturday, September 11, & Sunday, September 12
10 a.m.–3 p.m.
Lillian and Amy Goldman Stone Mill

This weekend visitors also can delight in cooking demos from chefs Peter Hoffman and Gillian Duffy, dance with New York City Ballet educators, and discover new fall classes for adults. Here are the details of some of the exciting events taking place:

Cooking Demos
Conservatory Kitchen Tent

Saturday, September 11, 1 & 3 p.m.
Gillian Duffy
Culinary editor, New York Magazine

Sunday, September 12, 1 & 3 p.m.
Peter Hoffman
Chef and owner of Manhattan’s Savoy and Back Forty restaurants

Ballet Among the Blooms
Sunday, September 12, 12, 2–5 p.m.
Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
Children learn ballet jumps and turns from New York City Ballet educators, watch School of American Ballet Dancers, and create wearable works of art inspired by the surrounding nature in an afternoon of fun and exploration.

Adult Education Free Open House
Saturday, September 11, 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Watson Building
Come be a student for the day and find out what’s new for fall in Gardening, Floral Design, Landscape Design, and more!

Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.

Family Garden Celebrates Caribbean, China, Ireland, Italy, Korea

Cooking Demo to Showcase these Pinky-sized Jewels in Caponata

Rebecca Lando is writer, producer, and host of the Web series Working Class Foodies. She will present cooking demonstration along with Chef Brendan McDermott at The Edible Garden Conservatory Kitchen on Saturday, August 28, at 1 and 3 p.m.

Eggplant is kind of the middle child of the summer farmer’s market.

Inedible raw unlike tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, and more complex to prepare than grilled or boiled corn, eggplant seems to stand out for all the wrong reasons: its dense flesh and generally heavy preparation can make it a bit of an overlooked anomaly. The time and degree of cooking generally necessary for eggplant makes it an awkward summer crop, seemingly out of place when you’re craving a light, refreshing dinner.

My mother used to halve and hollow large eggplants, stuff them with a sauteed mix of ground lamb, cubed eggplant flesh, onion, olives, and spices, top them with cheese, and broil them until the cheese was bubbly and the eggplant skin was crispy. Delicious and filling, but it would be torturous to eat in summer. Likewise, eggplant parmesan is too heavy for the hot months, and even a cooling baba ghanouj means turning on the oven.

But eggplant is far more versatile than you might think. Sliced thick and rubbed with a paste of olive oil, sea salt, crushed hot pepper, oregano, and lemon juice, then thrown on the grill, it’s a hearty and healthy alternative to steak. Cooked the same way and then cut down into cubes, it’s a fantastic base for a rustic Provencal ratatouille. read more »