My grandmother was a prolific gardener of flowers and vegetables; at her house in Kansas purple iris would spread in circles, she trained raspberries onto fences and the trees--redbud, apple, dogwood, cherry--were free to grow into their own personalities. Inside her house tropical plants cascaded from hanging baskets and she created tiny landscapes in moist terrariums.

Gardening seemed to skip a generation; my mother lives in Kansas City, Missouri and does terrible things to plants. They have withered and died from lack of water and they have been drowned from being planted where gutters drain. Flowers have been decapitated by lawn mowers and the prize rose garden that came with the house is now just a single, scrappy, thorn bush. Her Japanese maple is a stump with one, lone sloping branch--it looks like a miniature slide with leaves. Once, the local evening news showed a close-up of the front of my parent's house as an example of what not to do with shrubs. Social services should intervene if she ever attempts indoor plants again.

On a recent visit, I told my mother that I needed fresh basil for a salad and she told me to go and grab it from "the herb garden". This I had to see. I went outside to find a feral patch of mint flourishing. It had spread to cover the entire side of the house, it's robust scent filling the air. Finally, in the struggle for survival that most plants eventually succumb to in my parent's yard, a survivor had emerged. The basil had not faired so well. I finally located an anemic stem of it buried in the mint and just snapped the whole thing off to put it out of its misery.

Here are a few suggestions for mint bumper crops by food and word maven Raquel Prezel, co-author of the book American Masala with chef Suvir Saran, forthcoming Oct. 2nd.

Click here to view it on Amazon.com: American Masala

Add to a pitcher of iced tea

Chop and mix with finely chopped lemon peel and finely chopped garlic
for a lovely, fresh take on gremolata. Eat with lamb, grilled steak or
chicken.

Chopped with parsley and added along with chopped tomatoes and
scallions to cooked bulgur for tabbouleh.

Pureed with toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, and olive oil for a mint pesto.

Pulsed in a food processor with sugar and sprinkled over ice cream.