In the Guardian this week
I had ideas about gardening, but everything I planted died. Then I started looking at what was already around me, and a lightbulb went off
Iwas working as a financial services lawyer in urban areas like New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong for 30 years. My family came back to New Jersey because my youngest daughter had really bad allergies to the pollution in Hong Kong at the time. The whole forager thing started because we bought this major fixer-upper, and I had ideas about gardening. But everything I planted died. I was working, I’ve got three kids, so I didn’t have time to look after things.
I started looking at what was already there. What grows naturally? I was captivated by how beautiful some of these native plants are. And then my neighbors who are naturalists came over and explained the ecological difference between invasive plants [which are non-native to the ecosystem and whose introduction causes harm to human or ecological health] and native plants, which are indigenous species that occur naturally in an ecoregion without human introduction. That was my first lightbulb moment. I started to totally geek out on knowing what different plants are. I would read plant books in the bathtub after a long day of work.
My dad had some friends come over who asked about the invasive Japanese knotweed I was trying to get rid of, and they said, “Oh, we eat this in Japan – it’s supposed to be really good for you.” That was my second lightbulb moment: you don’t have to feel so depressed about being a failed gardener, because you can use the invasive plants. A lot of them are from Asia, and where they come from, they are revered and used as special foods.
My third lightbulb moment came about when I was looking for more recipes, because I was trying to figure out how to eat all these plants I had growing around me. Friends of ours invited us to come to restaurant Daniel [an upscale Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan]. They said, “Bring in stuff from your meadow, and tell them to make it into something for dinner.”
The full story is here and well worth reading
