Big fun news for this season: Karina and I are going to teach our Tasting Nature class at Drumlin Farm, using the Maryann Thompson-designed Farm Life Center and the associated Learning Gardens, designed by SegoDesign. Drumlin has a new coordinator for the gardens, Emma Scudder, and we know they’ll be looking amazing this year.

Tasting Nature: 

identify, harvest, and prepare edible plants found in everyday landscapes

Join us for a foraging walk and kitchen demonstration centering around seasonal edible plants. Learn ecological, medicinal, and nutritional benefits of specific wild plants (different characters for each season) and enjoy technique-driven cooking demonstrations with sample tastings. Bring wildness to your table with best-practice foraging and preparation techniques.

Sign up HERE.

Some photos from past classes, taught at the FloraVerdura Farm in Lincoln:

Natalie teaching bronze fennel and tasting the seeds

Karina preparing multicolored potato salad with baby tomatoes and flower garnish

Tasting Nature: a workshop series at Drumlin Farm

With landscape ecologist Natalie DeNormandie & chef Karina Hines

Spring Session: May 12th, Summer Session: July 28th, Fall Session: Sept 15th    

Saturdays 10am-1pm

Tasting Nature bundles a plant identification walk and foraged foods cooking workshop. First, walk nature with Natalie to learn seasonal plant identification, harvesting techniques, and medicinal & nutritional benefits of plants grown at Drumlin Farm. Then, come into the teaching kitchen to transform farmed and foraged foods: watch Karina demonstrate chef techniques for bringing the tastes of nature to your table. All sessions include sample tastings, take-home plant information, and recipe handouts. Add flavors of the season and super nutrients to foods you already love. We can’t wait to share our love of wild flavorful plant foods with you!

Teacher Bios:

Natalie DeNormandie is principal designer and owner of SegoDesign, a 12-year-old landscape architecture firm in Lincoln, MA. Her locally-grown flower-and-herb CSA, FloraVerdura, delivers fresh seasonal organic flower bouquets weekly. Natalie obtained a Master in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and obtained certificates in native plant studies from the New England Wildflower Society and Herbalism from the Boston School of Herbal Studies. She loves plants and works to reduce plant blindness by bringing plants into people’s gardens, kitchens, medicine cabinets, and lives through teaching and design.

An Australian-born farmer’s daughter, Karina grew up in the kitchen and garden of her family’s farm.  This connection with the earth and the food we eat that was fostered in Karina since inception has greatly informed the chef that she is today; one who strives to create healthy, delicious, local and diverse dishes. Karina has been a private chef for 16 years, 10 years of which were spent traveling & cooking throughout Europe in homes & aboard private yachts.  Karina runs her own business, has studied herbalism for many years & teaches courses at the Boston School of Herbal Studies & local farms.  Karina’s global nature of experiences is reflected in her healthy innovative nutrient dense dishes that use both culinary & medicinal herbs & spices, served up in a way that makes them practical, approachable and affordable to anyone wishing to learn more.