Join the Arnold Arboretum and avid mycologist Lawrence Millman on this talk and walk Sunday, September 18 from 1 – 3 at Weld Hill, 1300 Centre Street in Boston, in search of New England fungi species. Be prepared to walk on and off trail, on uneven terrain and up steep slopes. Millman’s new book, Fascinating Fungi of New England, will be available for purchase and signing. Fee $15 member, $20 nonmember. Register in advance at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.
Susie Middleton of Martha’s Vineyard is a food writer, magazine consultant, chef, and recipe developer with an expertise in vegetable cooking. She is the author of two cookbooks-Fast, Fresh & Green, a collection of delicious vegetable side dishes published by Chronicle Books in 2010, and Fresh & Green for Dinner, which will be published by Chronicle Books in Spring, 2012. Susie blogs regularly about vegetable cooking and growing on her website, www.sixburnersue.com, and she blogs about sustainable issues and home cooking on the Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/susie-middleton. She will appear on Thursday, August 11, from 12 – 2 at the Dewey Square Farmers Market, South Station, Boston, so plan to stop by and chat.
Tomorrow night, Wednesday, July 20, drive out to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Elm Bank for an engrossing lecture on Energy-wise Landscape Design, beginning at 7 pm. You spend thousands of dollars each year to heat and cool your home. You spend hundreds of hours maintaining (or thousands of dollars paying someone to maintain) your landscaping. It’s possible to lower both expenses through environmentally conscious landscaping.
Environmentally conscious landscaping is the use of the right trees and plants in the right places to ensure that your heating and cooling systems don’t have to work overtime to keep your home comfortable. It’s using rain water runoff intelligently to use less water while gardening. And it’s choosing plants that can get by on what Mother Nature provides.
Sue Reed, a landscape architect and author, will offer practical ways you can save money, time and effort while making your landscape more environmentally healthy and energy efficient. You’ll leave with a head full of ideas of how to make your landscape ‘green’ in a very different way. She’s an engaging speaker with an infectious manner.
All ‘Wednesday Evening at Elm Bank’ presentations begin at 7 p.m. and end when the last question is answered. The price for Mass Hort members is $10, the cost to non-members is $15. Refreshments are always served. Presentations are held in the Education Building. Reservations are not required.
Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, author of Forest Hills Cemetery: 1848 – 2008, discusses the history of the cemetery and explores the rural cemetery movement of the nineteenth century on Thursday, August 4, from 5:30 – 7:30 at Historic New England’s Otis House in Boston. The reception, co-sponsored with The Victorian Society in America, NE Chapter, begins at 5:30, with the talk commencing at 6:30. $10 for HNE and Victorian Society members, $12 non-members. Registration is recommended – call 617-994-5934, or visit www.historicnewengland.org.
Join art historian Arete Warren at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday, July 14, at 4 pm, for a transparent look at the magnificent glass houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in America. Learn how the development of the functional greenhouse for growing tropical plants was expanded into glasshouses, orangeries, and conservatories becoming increasingly ornamental and an indicator of great wealth in American society. This illustrated lecture will include fine examples of these crystal palaces and their associated historical head houses and potting sheds.
Arete Warren is an art historian with an inclination towards architecture and decorative arts. She is the president of the Millbrook Garden Club and served as national chair for the Garden Club of America’s Garden History and Design Committee. She co-authored with May Woods, Glass Houses: A History of Greenhouses, Orangeries and Conservatories. You may register on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org. BBG member price: $22, nonmember price: $27.
Join author and native plant enthusiast Carolyn Summers for an evening lecture (Wednesday, July 13, 7:30 pm) and morning workshop (Thursday, July 14, 9 – 12) on designing and gardening with native plants. Based on her book Designing Gardens with the Flora of the American East, Ms. Summers will show how to increase biodiversity in our gardens, for beautiful, sustainable results which also benefit wildlife. The events will be held in the Far Barn at the Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard, and the cost to attend the Wednesday evening talk is $5 for PHA members, $10 for nonmembers, and the Thursday seminar will be $30 for PHA members, $35 for nonmembers. For more information, log on to www.pollyhillarboretum.org.
Williams-Sonoma Copley, at 100 Huntington Place in Boston, will host a special book signing and cooking demonstration with Maria Speck this coming Saturday, July 9, beginning at 2 pm. Maria will be signing copies of her cookbook Ancient Grains for Modern Meals. This is a unique opportunity to meet a leading chef and author. No reservations required, and the event is free. Maria will also appear at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge, on Tuesday, July 19 at 7. Food writer Maria Speck’s passion for propelling Old World staples such as farro, barley, polenta, and wheat berries to the forefront of new American cooking is beautifully presented in Ancient Grains for Modern Meals. In this inspired and highly personal book, Speck draws on food traditions from across the Mediterranean and northern Europe to reveal how versatile, satisfying, flavorful, and sophisticated whole grains can be.
Speck grew up in Greece and Germany before moving to the US as a young adult. She is a writer and journalist, and has contributed to Gourmet, Saveur, and Gastronomica, as well as Marie Claire and Elle. Her popular cooking classes in Cambridge focus on the flavors and cooking styles of the Mediterranean.
We all love fresh food grown from the garden. But we live in New England and if we expect to eat as well in January as in August, we need to preserve the summer garden’s abundance for the lean days of winter. Learn about the techniques of putting food by, including water bath canning, pressure canning, dehydrating, root cellaring and lacto-fermenting to create delicacies that will see us through the dark days and remind us of what awaits in the spring. An upcoming series of four classes at the Berkshire Botanical Garden will demystify all aspects of preserving food.
On Wednesday, July 13, the class is entitled You CAN Do It! Hot water bath and pressure cooker canning is not just for jams and jellies (although it’s really good for those too). Learn how to put up your own salsa, chutneys and condiments. We will explore the many ways a canner can be put to use creating wonderful and unique gifts as well as enhancing your own food pantry. This class will also cover pressure canning and will demystify this useful method for insuring food safety. On Wednesday, July 27, enjoy Dry it – You’ll Like It & Baby It’s Cold Inside. Dehydrating and freezing as methods for preserving foods are perhaps the easiest for beginners. Learn how to use a dehydrator to make soup, snacks and delicacies to give as gifts or enjoy at home. Home-dried food has less salt and sugar, is far less expensive than the commercial counterparts and fabulous taste. Freezing summers bounty is another fool proof method for putting food by. Once mastered, the basics of blanching, chilling, air tight wrapping and freezing will provide a taste of summer in the depths of winter. These tried and true, simple techniques will be just like having Guido’s right in your house. Wednesday, August 10 brings We’re in a Pickle Now. Lacto-fermentation is one of the only food preservation techniques that actually enhances the flavor and nutrition of a food. Well learn about the chemistry and techniques of fermenting food on a small scale. Make every meal better with some kimchi. Finally, on Wednesday, August 24, we’ll learn What Lies Beneath. Think you can’t eat garden fresh food in the middle of winter? Think again! With a root cellar, you can enjoy carrots, beets, turnips, onions, potatoes, leeks and fruits like apples and pears all winter long. A well-made root cellar acts like a second refrigerator but needs no electricity. Use it to store wine, cider, lard and all those tasty lacto-fermented vegetables. We will explore what it takes to create a root cellar, how to prepare vegetables for their winter home and how to use the produce you store there.
All classes are led by Kathy Harrison, who has been preserving food for over 30 years. She teaches classes on all manner of food preservation for many organizations and has presented trainings for NOFA and Mother Earth News. She is the author of several books. Her latest is Just In Case: How to Be Self Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens. Kathy and her husband, Bruce run Barefoot Farm, where they raise bees, organic fruits and vegetables.
Register on line (www.berkshirebotanical.org) for all four classes (BBG members $75, nonmembers $85), or register for any individual class ($22 for all.)
The Garden Club of the Back Bay and The Friends of the Public Garden join local author Meg Muckenhoupt as she travels through the verdant world of her book, Boston’s Gardens & Green Spaces. This exciting lecture examines the role of public spaces throughout Boston’s historic and contemporary landscape. Rediscover Boston’s most revered historic parks and explore the city’s ever-expanding network of public spaces. How has the philosophy behind public spaces shifted over the years? How significant is the native flora and green space to the city’s overall health? This is a fascinating journey through green Boston, past to present—and all nature lovers, gardening enthusiasts, and history buffs should be sure to come along for the ride. Meg Muckenhoupt is a freelance environmental and travel writer. Her articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix, Boston Magazine, the Time Out Boston guide, and many other publications. She holds a certificate in Field Botany from the New England Wild Flower Society. This special June meeting will take place Thursday, June 16 beginning at 11 am at Trident Booksellers, 338 Newbury Street (between Hereford Street and Massachusetts Avenue.) Garden Club of the Back Bay members will receive written notice of this meeting – rsvp’s required due to limited space.
