Bright Spring Flavors with Melina Hammer | Saturday 04.26.25 @ 4pm
Bright Spring Flavors with Melina Hammer | Saturday 04.26.25 @ 4pm
Bright Spring Flavors with Melina Hammer | Saturday 04.26.25 @ 4pm
Bright Spring Flavors with Melina Hammer | Saturday 04.26.25 @ 4pm

Bright Spring Flavors with Melina Hammer | Saturday 04.26.25 @ 4pm

$145.00
Quantity:
Ah, the glories of mud season... That in-between time before last threat of frost where only the hardiest survive, and just about anything that manages to grow in our gardens outshines most everything you could buy from a store.

Think spring radishes, pea shoots and tender herbs like our do-everything bff, parsley. This menu gives a nod and a curtsy to the transformative powers that an herb garden can bestow on your home cooking, and how to extract maximum flavors from the simplest ingredients. From a humble garnish to flavor-packed sauces and aiolis, just snip from the garden and feast.

On the menu:

'Mussels for Betty', named for one of Melina's earliest mentors, a Grande Dame in food and friend to Julia Child: plump mussels cooked in a butter-white wine sauce with velvety shallots, radishes and celery leaves. It's a luxurious and unique preparation, with unexpected sweetness from the radish + shallot.

Handmade Pici Pasta tossed in umami parsley sauce: Master this excellent, easy-to-make pasta + a great back-pocket sauce for the arsenal.

Airy, rich Kahlúa Chocolate Mousse, finished with flaky sea salt... A sultry send-off to punctuate the evening.

Together, we'll make and enjoy a handful of recipes from Melina's award-winning cookbook that celebrate these harbingers of cooking + eating the season. 

[Please, no substitutions]

ABOUT THE CHEF
Melina is the IACP award-winning author of A Year at Catbird Cottage (2022, Ten Speed Press), a love letter to food's seduction and eating with the seasons.  She is also a food stylist, recipe developer, chef, and food photographer, and the owner of Catbird Cottage in upstate New York, where she and her husband host travelers who have made their home the place to celebrate their special moments.

A Year at Catbird Cottage received a 2023 IACP award for Best Food Photography & Styling, and was named an Amazon Editor's Pick upon its debut. Her previous book, Kid Chef (2016, Sonoma Press) is a bestseller, empowering young people in the kitchen, and appeared in the Disney movie Noelle (2019), starring Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader, and Shirlely MacLaine.

Melina has appeared on podcasts including Cookery by the Book, Play Me a Recipe, Of a Certain Age, and Creative Live We are Photographers. She has contributed to Bon Appetit, Food52, The New York Times, Cooking Light, Eating Well, The Kitchn, Edible, Martha Stewart, and Row 7 Seeds. In 2018, Melina won an IACP award for Best Food Styling, and in 2020, was nominated as an IACP finalist for her Instagram, @melinahammer.

Above all, Melina relishes in preparing delicious menus for supper clubs she hosts at her cottage. She loves foraging wild foods, growing food in her kitchen garden, tending her pollinator gardens, and hanging out on her hillside deck, watching the antics of the local wildlife.