For 15 years I've grown my own herbs, at my house in Mattituck — peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, chives, lavender, rosemary, two types of thyme, oregano, marjoram, French tarragon, cilantro, flat parsley, dill, two types of sage, and basil. It's 60 feet by 60 feet with brick paths in between — very Martha Stewart.

I've always used only a tiny fraction of what I grow, and have on occasion given away herbs to restaurants. But now that the Bistro is open, which also has an herb garden, I can use the herbs there.

For example, Arie, the chef at the Bistro, came up with chive butter, which I really like with the French rolls at the Bistro. He also uses the longer chives for our fish special – which is wrapped in a local savoy cabbage leaf, and the chives are used like a ribbon to tie it up like a package.

If you don’t grow your own herbs, find a friend who grows them, or look around the local farm stands.

Here are a few recipes that call for plenty of local herbs:

Local Potatoes Roasted with Pork Bellies and Herbs

This dish is very fast, easy, local and delicious. First, you need a shallow dish that you can put into the oven. You can use any kind of shallow baking pan, roasting pan, or baking dish. I use a big ceramic oval one, or else an enamel-covered cast iron one that I probably picked up at a yard sale.

I like to use whole small local red potatoes from local farmstands. I get a quart of the small red “B” potatoes, then I cut each one in half. If they are small enough, I'll use them whole.

Cut the potatoes into large chunks if necessary, and put into the roasting pan. Cut up some pork belly into fairly small pieces and toss that in with the potatoes. I like pork bellies better than bacon because it is more neutral in flavor. You can toss in some very thin sliced onion or scallion or chives as well. Add some fresh rosemary or oregano, or even fresh mint leaves, and toss it all together.

Bake at 325 degrees in the middle to upper side of the oven, until the potatoes are soft and sizzling. Heat rises, so I find the upper part of the oven is better. The fat from the pork bellies melts and teams perfectly with the potatoes.

Green and White Pizza

My older brother David likes to cook too, and we used to make pizza together all the time with different doughs and different toppings. So much fun, and easy. He loves to buy kitchen equipment -- always the top-notch, expensive brands -- and then a few years later he gets tired of them or runs out of room and he gives them to me.

My friend Maximilian likes to cook too, and once when he was over, we had a pizza-making contest. Mine was a pizza margherita, using fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella, and lots of basil from my garden. Maximilian’s was sort of a white pizza – except it didn’t have any cheese on it – just herbs. All it was was pizza dough, olive oil, and fresh herbs. So it was really a green pizza. It looked gorgeous – just green and white – fresh herbs highlighted against a white background.

Maximilian learned to cook from his Italian grandmother. One thing I learned from him is to use tons of olive oil. When he comes over for the weekend, I use up a whole quart of olive oil in a single weekend.

So for the pizza contest, we put my entry, the pizza margherita, and Maximilian’s entry, the green and white pizza, into the oven. They were small pizzas, so they both fit onto the pizza stone side by side. So then, I am using the pizza peel to take the pizzas out of the oven. Both pizzas look absolutely delicious. Maximilian is a good cook, and so am I. These pizzas are going to be great. When I take the pizza margherita out, no problem. However, when I take Maximilian’s green and white herb pizza out, the pizza falls to the floor, herb side down, onto the carpet.

In my kitchen at home, I have a carpet on the floor, which might seem odd, but I want to protect the floor, which is wide pine boards.

Maximilian immediately cries out, “Sabo-taja!” “Sabo-taja!” in a very Italian accent, since he thought I dropped his pizza to the ground on purpose so that I could win the contest. I absolutely did not do it on purpose – or maybe it was a true Freudian slip, truly subconscious. “How could you drop my pizza onto the Persian carpet?!” he screamed (note- the carpet is not Persian.)

The pizza looked so good, we were not going to let it go to waste. I simply picked it up off the carpet and we ate it. Both pizzas were fantastic! But we both agreed, Maximilian’s was better - so he won the contest. We both still say “Sabo-taja!” “Sabo-taja!”at appropriate moments, like he’ll say it when we sing karaoke and he thinks I'm upstaging him.

Mint Flower Wine

We have a lot of mint growing at the Bistro, and this past summer, between the construction finally being finished and all the work getting the Bistro ready to open, and the fantastic growing season, the mint got a little neglected and it grew really tall and had lots of flowers. I would normally trim them before they flowered, but I didn’t have time.

So I had a lot of very tall mint, and lots of white fuzzy mint flowers. One weekend, I decided to trim the flowers and some of the top leaves to make a mint flower wine. I put the mint leaves and mint flowers together with water, sugar, honey, white raisins and a little golden bee pollen that I got in France, and let it steep, and then I added wine yeast to start the fermentation. I made two five gallon carboys, or enough for about 4 cases of wine. So far so good! It’s still aging. I believe it will make a good aperitif.

Chive Chutney

I have so many chives, I have been racking my brain for ideas on what to do with it. So I came up with the idea of a chive chutney – sort of like an onion chutney, but with chives. It will be bright green – a condiment, a little side dish or sauce, maybe something you spread on bread, or eat with cheese. Sort of like a pesto – but with chives instead of basil. In Italy they have salsa de prezzemolo, which is sort of a pesto made from just parsley and olive oil. I have made cilantro chutney from an Indian cookbook – just put the cilantro leaves in the food processor together with lime juice – fantastic.

Anyway, the chive chutney I am envisioning would have a little sweetness to it, like an onion chutney. I will have to make it and report back.

And e-mail me if you want chives.