The name oregano is derived from the Greek oros (meaning mountain) and ganos (meaning joy). The literal translation means “mountain of happiness,” since it covers hillsides in the Mediterranean and smothers them with beautiful fragrance and flowers. For our purposes, that translation still applies, as oregano is a fundamental herb that provides as much flavorful happiness as it does beauty or aroma.
Greek and Roman brides and grooms used to be crowned with laurels made of oregano. It is a popular herb in Mediterranean countries and widely grown in the south of France, where it finds a prominent place in various regional cuisines.
On a more practical level, oregano is an herb that retains its flavor well when dried. For a quick primer on drying herbs, it is important to harvest your herbs mid-morning, once the dew has a chance to dry off, but before they are wilted by the hot afternoon sun. Inspect the herbs and remove any damaged or diseased foliage.
Being a “foodie” (I know, that term has run its course with so many of us who love to eat!) is often something left up to adults—people who know how to order off-menu or pick a perfect table wine. And alternatively, someone who’s tried every form of offal under the sun, but let’s tackle one thing at a time. As with so many things, your passions can often find their footing when you’re a kid, meaning taste and good eating habits start early. So to help our young gourmands get off on the right foot, we’re setting aside an entire week dedicated to the celebrated relationships between plants, farms, and every kid’s favorite foods.
Join us February 17 through 23 for a full week of edible fun in our Conservatory Dining Pavilion, where our staff and a team of experts from Growing Chefs will be on hand offering demonstrations, choice recipes, and hands-on activities backed by plenty of music and food tastings. A variety of activity stations will have your little ones making the rounds from pickles to cheese, tinkering with the kitchen chemistry that brings the staples of your table to life. And a daily cooking demonstration at 1 p.m. supplies kid-friendly recipes and delicious samples with support from local chefs.
Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is a blogger for Garden Variety News and the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org.
Visitors to Stone Barns Center’s farm and food gardens in northern Westchester were treated to an engaging interview with Alice Waters this past weekend, as well as the 200 new recipes in her latest vegetable-focused book, The Art of Simple Food II: Recipes, Flavor, and Inspiration from the New Kitchen Garden, out this month from Clarkson Potter ($35.00) and available in the NYBG’s Shop in the Garden.
Ms. Waters, a kind of legend in her own time, has authored something like 14 books, launched the Edible Schoolyard Project all over the world, and is a chef and owner of the famous Chez Panisse restaurant and cafe, which she founded with others in 1971. She pioneered the cooking philosophy that today we call “farm-to-table.” Her restaurant, located in Berkeley, California, uses only fresh, flavorful seasonal ingredients that are shopped for and produced locally and sustainably.
We all have good intentions. Recently I was perusing well-known quotes on ‘good intentions’ when I came across one that I liked from Jeffery Kluger, a senior writer at Time Magazine. It reads as follows: “There’s a deep-freeze of sorts for all good intentions—a place that you store your plans to make changes in your life when you know you’re not going to make them at all.”
This blog entry is about making good on ‘good intentions’ which may incidentally involve a deep freeze. Every year I plant at least four different types of basil. I do this partially for experimental purposes, though mostly because I love having fresh basil around in the summer. But how often do I actually use it?
That is where good intentions come in. Often basil from my garden or from the store lies around the kitchen before it is all used up. I am ridiculously frivolous and wasteful when it comes to basil. Try as I might, there is something about summer that just does it to me. I swear I will be more vigilant and still it blackens and wilts before my eyes.
What, then, can be done to excess basil to ensure that it is put it to good use throughout the year? When I buy or pick a large bundle of basil, the first thing I generally do is stick the long stems in a glass of water to keep it hydrated. I use it like a vase arrangement and place it on the corner of my kitchen counter at arm’s length from my cutting board.
Four days and counting! We’re ticking off the calendar squares ahead of summer’s first Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs, and with good reason: we’ve had the menu for weeks and it’s making us unbelievably hungry. Simple, right? Of course, the seasonal flavors and aromas are anything but. This Sunday, July 28, Chef Cruz Goler of Lupa Osteria Romana teams with Chef Frank Langello of Babbo, creating a kitchen super group in the NYBG‘s own Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.
If Mozzarella di Bufala, marinated strip steak, pistachio olive oil cake, and the fresh, kaleidoscopic flavors created by two of New York’s best restaurants pique your appetite, this MasterCard® Priceless event isn’t something you’ll settle for missing.
The three-course, family-style meal doesn’t skimp, providing expertly-paired wines, sparkling Italian water, and all the fixings necessary for a picture perfect night around the table. But it wouldn’t be a proper Garden event without some extra variety, so we’ve gone ahead and flushed out the evening with a romp in the Family Garden. Expect plenty of hands-on gardening crafts and activities to keep the little ones occupied, while we encourage adults to get their hands dirty, too. We’re also bookending the dinner service with cooking demonstrations by Mario’s Chefs, giving you a glimpse into the expertise that creates each gourmet recipe. Even better, you’ll be able to ask them questions as they go!
I hope everyone had a safe, colorful Independence Day! Our fireworks are still going, so to speak (these flowers last longer than your average bottle rocket). And we’re not wasting any time leaping into this “sort of” long weekend, either, with a packed schedule of Wild Medicine activities, music, dance, and gardening demos.
With Commedia dell’Arte lilting through the Renaissance in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden and all things onions and garlic taking over the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden for Sweet & Stinky, your kids won’t be at a loss for entertainment. Meanwhile, join us in the Home Gardening Center on Saturday or Sunday for Herbal Delights, our latest gardening demonstration highlighting the stack of appetizing ways you can make herbs the workhorse of your garden. You can even continue your edible education back in the Family Garden with one of our daily cooking demonstrations using fresh-picked ingredients.
We’ll be outside all weekend, enjoying the fruits of summer, so joining us wouldn’t be a bad idea! Check out the events below.
Food fans! (That’s all of you, I imagine.) On site this Wednesday, the Garden offers even more than just-picked fruits and vegetables thanks to our friends at Whole Foods Market. If a $50 gift card in your pocket and a little summer grilling know-how sound like your cup of tea, we’ve got you covered and then some!
From 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 26, Whole Foods Market Culinary Demonstration Specialists will set up at the Reflecting Pool for tastings and cooking demos featuring the season’s freshest picks at The Peak Pick. This week’s spotlight lands on summer squash, which we expect to see stacked high during the Greenmarket, now here each Wednesday. Better yet, our visiting specialists will be making light, irresistible grilled squash and brie sandwiches with them, tailor-made for backyard cook outs and Sunday brunch.
As the icing on the cake (or the sprouts on the sandwich), there’s a $50 Whole Foods gift card up for grabs if you’re a Twitter user! Just snap a picture of the cooking demonstration in action while you’re visiting, tweet it @nybg with the hashtag #nybgwfm, and you’ll be entered to win! As soon as our one lucky winner is selected, we’ll be in touch via Twitter to get you your prize.
While you’re here, be sure to stop by the Greenmarket to pick up your week’s supply of fresh, delicious, and varied local products—not to mention baked goods. For a little more on what the Greenmarket‘s about (and what you’re missing if you skip it), watch the video below.
Don’t mourn spring for too long! Even if those idyllic daytime temperatures came and went like an afterthought, what follows is that much better: summer, and all the delectable eats that tank-tops-and-flip-flops weather brings along with it. Spring’s fruit and vegetable plantings are teetering on the edge of the first harvest (I know, where did the time go?) in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, and naturally that can only point to cookouts in our future. But we’re not about to settle for half measures when it comes to the tastes of the warmer months. With Mario Batali back in our corner for another round of edible outdoor adventures, how could we?
This year’s Edible Academy Family Picnic brings the maestro of all things culinary back to The New York Botanical Garden for an exclusive evening dining experience, complete with a seasonal cooking demonstration from the chef himself. That’s in addition to hands-on vegetable harvests in the Family Garden, tutorials for hopeful greenthumbs, tree climbing, and more than enough crafts and family activities to keep even the most tireless toddler happily occupied. It all begins at 4 p.m. on June 10, kicking off with a delicious picnic supper designed by Mario himself and enjoyed on the flowering Garden grounds. Afterwards, dig into the fun taking place in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden before joining Mario at 5:30 p.m. for a book signing, followed by his gourmet cooking demonstration alongside Daphne Oz, Mario’s co-host on ABC’s The Chew.
As the founder and director of the Growing Chefs field-to-fork education program, co-founder of the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, and the Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, Annie Novak knows her way around a vegetable plot. Join her on May 17 for The Art of Cooking in the French Garden, bringing the taste and sophistication of this world-renowned cuisine to the NYBG.
Coq au vin, Quiche Lorraine, and vichyssoise—nowhere in the world have culinary artists developed such a reputation for precision, passion and talent as in the French kitchen. From perfectly crusty baguettes to finely flavored vinaigrettes, the art of French cooking seems at first glance like an unachievable alchemy of herbs, creams, and knife skills. But as a green thumb enamored with the precise and beautiful public parks throughout Paris (and a compulsive Googler of Versailles’ vegetable gardens), I became obsessed with the idea that French food could be done well, yet with ease.
The Children’s Gardening Program at the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden gives kids ages 3-12 a chance to team-up to plant, tend and harvest their very own plot in the Garden. But that’s only half of the story — of course the most fun part is eating all of that homegrown produce!
Stop by the Family Garden to enjoy cooking demonstrations throughout the week, offering simple but delicious ideas on how to take advantage of our garden’s bounty. Our hands-on activities will help you to remember that growing, preparing and eating good food needs to be FUN!
All this month, the gardening fun in the Family Garden focuses on plants that are pickled. Enjoy the harvest of fresh cucumbers by making your own pickles to take home. For a rundown of what’s happening now, check the “plan your visit” section of our website.
Here’s a short video featuring two of the amazing staff members in the Family Garden, Rachel and Annie, showing you one of the easiest dishes around – a simple herb confetti. But as you’ll see, harvesting and preparing the dish is almost more fun than eating it!
The name oregano is derived from the Greek oros (meaning mountain) and ganos (meaning joy). The literal translation means “mountain of happiness,” since it covers hillsides in the Mediterranean and smothers them with beautiful fragrance and flowers. For our purposes, that translation still applies, as oregano is a fundamental herb that provides as much flavorful happiness as it does beauty or aroma.
