Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on August 10 2013, by Matt Newman
Not to kick off your Saturday with a growling stomach (not that brunch is a bad idea), but I thought we’d take a look back at the plated perfection of our last Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs before we jump into the next one tomorrow night. Piqued palates welcome!
Photo by Andrea House
Posted in Programs and Events on August 9 2013, by Matt Newman
Got your Family Dinner tickets yet? This Sunday, August 11, we launch into the second of three top-notch culinary adventures as a new batch of Mario Batali’s finest chefs team up to treat your appetite. Top billing this round goes to Chef Andy Nusser of Tarry Lodge and Chef Anthony Sasso of Casa Mono, with a rich, varied menu of fruits, vegetables, and savory dishes that make artful use of the grill. Time is running out, and so are open spots, so make a point of visiting Priceless NY to get your tickets.
Elsewhere in the Garden, Wild Medicine is only getting better with the flush of summer’s greenery. The Italian Renaissance Garden in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a daily-changing landscape festooned with the therapeutic plants, trees, and flowers of Italy’s garden at Padua. In the Ross Hall, we’re spotlighting the Music and Dance of the Renaissance with the talented bards of Early Music New York and The New York Historical Dance Company. The Library is a haven for history buffs right now with The Renaissance Herbal‘s collection of centuries-old botanical tomes. And in the Home Gardening Center, we’re going practical with water-wise gardening tips and plant placement advice. Whether you’re revisiting your seaside garden with new resolve post-Sandy, or just not sure what to plant in your backyard, our horticulturists have the answers.
We’ll see you out there!
Posted in Mario Batali's Edible Garden on August 8 2013, by Matt Newman
From the Mozzarella di Bufala to the Pistachio Olive Oil Cake, the three-course, family-style meal cooked up by Chefs Cruz Goler and Frank Langello during July’s Family Dinner was a summer highlight for food lovers. But with different chefs come new and unique dishes! And without missing a beat, we’re leaping headlong into our second Family Dinner this Sunday, August 11, with the talents of another pair of Mario Batali‘s renowned chefs at the ready. With Chef Anthony Sasso of Casa Mono and Chef Andy Nusser of Tarry Lodge manning the grill, this is an unmissable al fresco experience.
Heirloom tomatoes, Shrimp al Ajillo, grilled apricots—there’s a lot going into this round’s menu. But I won’t spoil it all for you if you don’t want to see it; you can always find the full listing here. In the meantime, you’ll be greeted with expertly paired wines, sparkling Italian water, bookend cooking demonstrations set up around the dinner schedule, and hands-on gardening activities to keep your little ones occupied while the food is cooking up.
These photos from our July 28 evening, courtesy of Andrea House, should give you a taste of what you’ll enjoy this Sunday.
Posted in Programs and Events on July 29 2013, by Matt Newman
This week, we’re joining ConEdison as a supporting partner in their Plug Into Summer Fun contest, an opportunity for you and your friends to win daily prizes at locations around New York City. Better yet, we’re the Grand Prize Partner this week! If you missed out on any of our recent evening activities, such as Sunday’s Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs or our last Wild Medicine Cocktail Evening, this is your chance to laugh all the way to the bank with free trips to our upcoming events. Pair that with tickets to one of our Halloween adventures in October, and you’re staring down a prize worth $600! Considering you could easily enter this contest while lying on your couch, the cost/benefit tally is definitely leaning in your favor.
Being the weekly grand prize partner has its perks, too—you don’t have to wait until the end of the week to enter, for one. You can enter up to three times a day from now through Friday, August 2, to give yourself the best possible chance of taking home the reward. And because each entry also puts you in the running for the daily prizes offered by ConEd’s other partners, there are plenty of chances to land some winnings. All told, the contest is offering 36 prizes in total and runs until August 23!
Posted in Programs and Events on July 26 2013, by Matt Newman
As I write this, it’s barely lunchtime on Friday and already our stomachs are grumbling for Sunday night’s Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s Chefs. But if you saw the menu, you’d have no cause to blame us for jumping so far ahead of schedule. Chef Cruz Goler of Lupa and Chef Frank Langello of Babbo will be here and in rare form, slinging gourmet dishes in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden and talking shop with cooking demonstrations both before and after the meal. It’s a pretty well-rounded approach to highlighting everyone’s favorite pastime—eating well! And with plenty of crafts and activities to keep the kids happy (and perfectly paired wines to give your own mood that much more of a boost), it’s the quintessential al fresco dining experience.
There may only be two days until the event kicks off, but we still have a few tickets left for you to snap up, so don’t wait until the last minute. For more information on Family Dinners and everything happening during our summer Edible Garden events, head through to our official page—or zip right over to MasterCard’s Priceless NY registration page to grab a spot for Sunday night!
We’ll be prefacing our gourmand experience with an entire weekend of music, poetry, and hands-on activities centered around our ongoing exploration of Wild Medicine. Join us in the Ross Hall on Saturday, July 27, for the heights of lyricism hosted by visiting poets. The likes of Terese Svoboda and Rafael Campo will be joining us for dramatic readings of 16th-century classics, proving that the art of botany moves well beyond the beauty of the flower itself.
For the DIY dynamos among you, the Home Gardening Center should be high on your list of destinations, too. We’ll have an NYBG expert on hand to answer your questions on the pride of so many summer gardens: the hydrangea. Whether blue, pink, or somewhere in between, we’ll teach you how to grow and maintain these flower puffs to your liking.
There’s a whole lot more going on this weekend than I can jabber on about here, so head below for the schedule and we’ll see you on the grounds!
Posted in Programs and Events on July 24 2013, by Matt Newman
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!
Posted in Programs and Events on July 19 2013, by Matt Newman
Just over one more week to go! We’re counting off the days until Mario Batali‘s first Family Dinner of the summer, with eminent chefs from both Lupa and Babbo presiding, and already our appetites are piqued. Not that it’s all too surprising—the promise of Mozzarella di Bufala, strip steak with marinated runner beans, pistachio olive oil cake and more would have the gourmand in almost anyone hopping with anticipation.
The event goes well beyond the family-style dinner, too. If you’ve got kids in tow, don’t worry about antsiness playing into it: we’ll have a bunch of hands-on gardening and craft activities to keep the little ones happy. Meanwhile, cooking demonstrations from Mario’s top chefs round out the experience in the Whole Foods Market® Family Garden Kitchen. It’s a lot to pack into one evening, but we’re not shy of saying how proud we are to host it! That said, we only have food for so many guests in the Family Garden at one time, so tickets are limited—better to register now than wait until next weekend! Check out The Edible Garden for more on this MasterCard® event, or head straight over to Priceless NY to get your tickets. Your tastebuds would thank you if they could.
For this weekend’s activities, Wild Medicine is as much the belle of the ball as ever, with horticulturists working each and every day to keep the Conservatory display at its peak. And we’re doing it one better this weekend with Saturday and Sunday gardening demonstrations geared toward the flower arrangers among you (or those who are hopeful of becoming one). Check the rest of the schedule below!
Posted in Programs and Events on July 15 2013, by Matt Newman
In food blogging, there’s always a trove of challenges to navigate: finding a voice in the hungry pack of culinary columnists, translating your dining experiences to allow readers to eat with their eyes, and—at least in New York—keeping pace with the frantic trends of the food scene. But of everything facing the writer from day to day, age should never be an obstacle to success—even kid bloggers deserve an audience!
During June 10th’s Edible Academy Family Picnic, held among the vegetable plots in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, Mario Batali and Daphne Oz teamed up to charm palates with gourmet meals and a light-hearted cooking demonstration. We also invited several food bloggers like Carrie Vibert, Caroline Campion, and Amie Valpone to join us for the event, kicking off MasterCard’s Priceless NY Kid Food Blogger Experience. They not only had the opportunity to taste a few of Mario’s custom-designed dishes, but pique the muse of young writers anxious to put pen to paper. From there, we challenged the kids at the Family Picnic to submit their own blog posts—about the events, the experience, and the food prepared by Mario and his team of talented chefs.
Posted in Programs and Events on July 12 2013, by Matt Newman
Friday, Friday, how do we love you—let me count the ways. Or the activities, at least. We’re once again toeing the weekend’s threshold here at the NYBG, and the summer blooms make for a bright lead-in to the next few days of Wild Medicine, home gardening demonstrations, and romps in the edible plots of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. You might want to make a point of hitting up the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, too. Talking greenhouses and summer in the same breath might be a bit redundant, but the colors under the glass dome make my point for me—between the lilies and thistles of The Italian Renaissance Garden, and the lollipop plants, passion flowers, and lotuses surrounding, these collections are unmissable.
Speaking of unmissable, 2013’s first Family Dinner with Mario Batali’s chefs is fast approaching, and tickets are still available for this summer evening in the Family Garden. We’ve even got a menu up on the main page for the July 28 event! And if Mozzarella di Bufala and Pistachio Olive Oil Cake sound like your kind of eats, you’re headed in the right direction. Check out the offerings, maybe take a peek at the restaurants involved (you won’t be disappointed in the visiting chefs’ qualifications), and register while you still can!
Just one last reminder: while most of the 2013 Summer Intensives have already started, hopeful gardeners looking to earn a certificate from one of the most prestigious horticulture schools in the world still have a day or two to sign up for our Gardening Summer Intensive. You can see what it’s all about here.
As we saunter on into summer, we’ll have more events for you, too. For now, check our weekend schedule below.
Posted in Around the Garden, Photography on June 10 2013, by Matt Newman
If you’re a ticket holder for today’s Edible Academy Family Garden Picnic with Friend of the Garden Mario Batali, you’ll find plenty to explore and the lettuce abundant!
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen