Daily Archives: November 2, 2022

Saturday, November 12, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Introduction to Home Curing

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This Berkshire Botanical Garden demonstration on November 12 from 10 – 1, led by Jake Levin, will take you through the process of curing at home. It begins with a brief history of curing/salting meat,  including an explanation of the three products and basic techniques we will be making that day. We discuss what cuts and types of meat are best suited for different kinds of curing techniques, and why. You will get a basic overview of what curing does and why. We will discuss the three basic curing techniques and why, when, and how to use them: brining, applying a rub (generally used for smoking meats) and dry-curing. We will then go through each technique doing a hands-on demonstration for each technique with a different product (brined chicken, rubbed pork tenderloin and dry-cured salmon). We will talk about how to think about what ingredients to include when curing and how that changes for each of the three techniques. Jake will explain the ratios for salt and other ingredients. He will explain frameworks to come up with one’s own recipe by thinking about other classic spice combinations or by using recipes from other meat dishes. At the end, we will sample some of the products we made. 

Jake Levin lives in the southern Berkshires with his wife and daughter on the land where he grew up. He is a whole-animal-butcher, writer and artist. When Jake is not working in his outdoor kitchen, he is on the road teaching people how to slaughter, butcher and cure meats as the “Roving Butcher.” BBG members $55, nonmembers $65. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/intro-home-curing

Monday, November 7, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Supergreen: Gardens, Placemaking, and Infrastructure, Online

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Roderick Wyllie and James A. Lord, founding partners of Surfacedesign, a San Francisco-based landscape architecture studio, challenge conventional approaches to design by asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users. By doing so, Wyllie and Lord focus on cultivating a sense of connection between the built and the natural world, inviting people to engage with the landscape in new ways. Together, the two landscape architects will present work that ranges in location and scale, from civic projects to intimate residential gardens, including Auckland International Airport in New Zealand; the 40-acre Expedia headquarters site on Seattle’s waterfront; Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco that includes a public park; and Uliveto, a private residence in Northern California.

Roderick Wyllie, FASLA, and James A. Lord, FASLA, along with partner Geoff di Girolamo, have established Surfacedesign as an international leader in landscape architecture, urban design, andsustainability. Alumni of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, both are ASLA Fellows. For the consistent excellence of their built designs, they were honored with the 2017 Cooper Hewitt Design Award.

This online New York Botanical Garden talk will take place November 7 from 6:30 – 7:30 Eastern time, and is $35. Register HERE.

Thursday, November 10 – The 19th Century Garden Part 2 – Exploring the Arts and Crafts Garden at Standen, Online

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The Arts and Crafts was an ethos rather than a style, and it is therefore difficult to define in simple terms. Taking the example of Standen in West Sussex, a garden created in harmony with Philip Webb’s designs for the house, this lecture will examine how the Arts and Crafts was manifest in gardens, both in planting and in design, and will look at the work of amateur gardeners as well as professionals. The relationship between gardens, architecture and interior design will be explored through the lens of the remarkably complete example at Standen. The influence of key figures such as William Morris, John Sedding and Thomas Mawson will be assessed, as well as their legacy in the twentieth century in the work of designers such as Gertrude Jekyll and Nora Lindsay.

Dr Caroline Ikin is a Curator at the National Trust, with a portfolio including the gardens at Standen and Nymans. She has previously worked for the Gardens Trust and is a writer specialising in C19 art, architecture and gardens. Caroline is author of The Victorian Garden (Bloomsbury, 2012), The Victorian Gardener (Bloomsbury, 2014), The Kitchen Garden (Amberley, 2017), and is currently working on a new survey of Victorian gardens to be published by Bloomsbury and the National Trust. She regularly contributes book and exhibition reviews to various publications, while her PhD thesis examined the designed landscape created by John Ruskin at Brantwood. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5. Register on Eventbrite HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.