Green Emporium Restaurant/Gallery

Cooking with lavender in the Pioneer Valley.

Lavender does not yet blanket the fields and hillsides of western Massachusetts, but if the Lavender and Herb Growers of the Pioneer Valley have their way, it soon will. At the Fourth Annual Lavender Days tour of the region last June, visitors prowled acres of fields where lavender holds sway, and learned to use the herb in all its myriad ways. They stuffed sachets and pillows, made lavender wands, distilled it into floral waters, and most deliciously, learned to flavor cakes, cookies, berries, fish, meat, and cheese with its distinctive aroma.

Lavender's flavor - a heady mix of flowers and mint-blends well with a surprising range of foods. At Stockbridge Farm in South Deerfield, Mary Ellen Warchol and her husband, John, welcome visitors with a changing array of dishes: corn chowder with herbs de Provence (a French herb mixture with lavender), a jug of lavender lemonade, platters of lavender pound cake and lavender cookies.

The Warchols have more than 500 lavender plants as well as an enviable perennial and herb garden. "Lavender blooms have a floral aroma," Mary Ellen points out; "the leaves are rather like rosemary, so you have two herbs in one." Only the flowers scented her crepes sweetened with lavender sugar and filled with lavender honey or lavender-berry jam. " On the second day of the tour, " she says with a laugh, "we had people lining up to eat pancakes as fast as John could make them."

At nearby Warm Colors Apiary, visitors roam around gardens where lavender plants bask in the hum of the bees that eventually produce lavender honey. Up in the hills of Colrain, Michael Collins, chef and co-owner of Green Emporium, demonstrates his lavender focaccia. A lavender enthusiast, Michael offers lavender specials on his menu throughout July and sells boxes of culinary lavender and jars of his homemade Raspberry-Lavender Preserves and Lavender Dressing and Marinade. At the demonstration, with local cheese-maker Carolyn Hillman at his side, Michael assures spectators, "It's easy. You start with some precooked bread circles, just as if you were making pizza. A little extra-virgin olive oil, a sprinkle of herbs de Provence and lavender, some lovely slices of goat cheese, a drop more oil, and into the oven with them." Soon he is cutting toothsome focaccia into wedges. Most people in the crowd are tasting lavender-flavored food for the first time - and they all come back for seconds.