Garlic Mustard: if you can't beat it, eat it!

NCSL's 2nd annual Garlic Mustard Pestival is May 19. Sold out. Like last year.

This month Lara Roketenetz led a volunteer battalion to harvest the invasive weed, garlic mustard. Lara is NCSL's natural resources specialist. Sergio Abramof came up with an unbelievable menu. Staff and volunteers transformed the Center into an Italian bistro. Wine will be served, which always seems to enhance attendance. The 120 guests will enjoy:

• Peppered picanha beef sliders with horseradish garlic mustard pesto sauce
• Grilled summer vegetable platter marinated with garlic mustard and drizzled with balsamic glaze
• Grilled and chilled salmon with garlic mustard pesto, kalamata tapenade
• Chilled farfale tri-color pasta with sweet peppers, garlic mustard, virgin olive oil & sea salt
• Stuffed pasta shells, mascarpone, spinach and garlic mustard stuffing, fresh marinara sauce
• Trevisana salad: baby greens, strawberries, pistachio, garlic mustard-balsamic vinaigrette

This event's not a money maker, just a Friend Raiser and a good way to sneak in some education to a willing group. (Lara created an award-worthy slide show that runs throughout the event.) It's all mission. Tickets were $25 and $35 for non-members.

Sergio (above, right) rocks for donating his talent and time! We look forward to doing lots of creative events partnering with the restaurateur, who runs Sergio's in University Circle and Sarava in Shaker Square.

Lara (at right) rocks for creating and spearheading the concept. Lara's Stewardship Saturdays attract anywhere from a half dozen to 40 volunteers each week. These are the folks who pull invasive weeds and plant natives, among other valuable tasks.

Does garlic mustard really taste good? I love pesto, and garlic mustard with a little olive oil, some Romano or Parmigiana cheese, roasted pine nuts and salt isn't bad at all. It's no sweet basil pesto, but it's more than palatable. Having chef Sergio helps. A lot. And consuming it with wine doesn't hurt either. Garlic mustard, true to it's name, tastes a lot like garlic. It's important to use only the first-year growth of this biennial. Around here, that means you're pulling (root and all!) in March and April. By now, there's nothing left but the second year stuff, which flowers and goes to seed and is just too bitter to enjoy. Of course you also want to pull only in areas that have not been sprayed by pesticides or herbicides.

Want to get a taste of your own? Unless you have some in the freezer or live in Alaska, you won't find any first-year growth now. Kalamazoo (Michigan) Nature Center has an excellent garlic mustard cookbook, From Pest to Pesto. Local chefs each came up with their own versions of how to use garlic mustard. The book's available online from their store. Tell them I sent you!

The good news: the battle against garlic mustard is spreading. It's even becoming popular. Last week I was in Owosso, Mich., home of Devries Nature Conservancy, to see Executive Director Ken Algozin. Ken had just led his center's first ever garlic mustard pull with dozens of volunteers and scores of garbage bags of the stuff -- roots and all -- to show for the trouble. Ken's pullathon is a typical example of what has become a spring rite in recent years throughout the Midwest, Northeast and a few Western states. (I Googled "garlic mustard pull" and came up with 574 hits, offers to get volunteers' hands dirty pulling weeds!)

In case you want to jump on the bandwagon and help stop the evil mustard's spread, here's a hint: When you pull it you have to get to it early in the year. Any one plant has up to 15,000 seeds, which if dispersed can stay viable in the seed bank up to five years (some say up to 11 years!).

And a final note: this year we had a tough time finding garlic mustard on our property. Seriously. We were amazed. Apparently, our staff and volunteers put a major dent in the spread of this nasty weed. (A few funny characters suggested planting more so we don't run out! Not a good idea.) Unfortunately, there's more than plenty to go around, and it's doing serious damage, to wildflowers and all sorts of native plants and even to deciduous trees, such as maples. It's very probable that next year and in succeeding years, literally tons of the stuff will grow again from the millions of seeds released here in the last five or more years. The settlers who in 1868 brought this medicinal, edible, erosion-controlling plant from Europe meant well but had no idea what they were unleashing on the New World.