OP: The New York Botanical Garden Cookbook

The Council of The New York Botanical Garden, New York, 1981. Hardcover. Very Good.

Put together as a sort of community cookbook to benefit The Council of the New York Botanical Garden’s many projects, particularly the Children’s Garden, this book will delight all gardeners because, simply, it was written by them. These are the dishes adorning the NYBG staff’s own tables and are as wide ranging as one might expect from a diverse crowd with varying backgrounds and skill sets.

You’ll find a Spanish omelet, curried chicken salad, rolled lamb stuffed with wild rice, taglialette soufflé, barbecue shrimp, picadillo à la Cubana, and Thai fried rice. But, of course, it is the vegetable dishes which really sing: Moldavian stuffed cabbage, moussaka, red beans and rice, stir-fried chicory, brandied carrots, Armenian white bean salad, spring weed soup (for which the weeds are unspecified), fried day lily buds, and wild sorrel omelet.

A nice addition to a New York collection, but, more importantly, a good resource to mix up a tired repertoire.

Our copy is a strong Very Good, clean and unmarked, with light shelfwear to the jacket.