Nearly 40 years have past since I ate my first rose infused food. For centuries the cuisines of Lebanon, Persia, India, China and Thailand have used roses to flavour their food. Inspired by these cuisines, I have translated them to western cooking. 40 bushes of 12 fragrant old rose species provide the basic ingredients for my rose cuisine. June and July at our farm is a rose petal harvest extravaganza. You can now purchase dried rose petals at specialty stores but growing old roses is easy and provides you with fresh and dried rose petals. Old roses are a tough breed and withstand harsh winters so they can be grown even in Edmonton, Alberta, but can also be grown in mild climates. Most old roses do not repeat bloom but bloom their hearts out for one month a year with marvelous fragrance wafting through your garden. These recipes bring that fragrance into your kitchen and tell you how to preserve them so you can eat your roses all year.

In 1997 Old Roses of the North nursery asked me to prepare a banquet for a rose festival and were surprised their roses could be eaten in so many ways. The Rose Festival Feast Cookbook includes all the rose dishes at the banquet from smoked salmon roses to grilled chicken with rose sauce and rose peach soup with rose coconut macaroons for dessert. There is a complete vegan option for every type of dish from roasted pepper roses to rose mussakk'a, and a dessert of havrekakor ( rose Swedish oat thins). How to dry and preserve you roses for cooking are featured in the first section of the book so you can eat your roses year round. My rose motto is enjoy the fragrant old roses but continue to enjoy the fragrance throughout the year in your cooking. The book includes the following sections:

BASICS STOCKS

BEVERAGES APPETIZERS

BREAD SOUP

SALAD

HOT VEGETABLE DISHES

PILAF

MAIN DISHES

DESSERT