Notes from a Food Diva: Margaret Roach

Margaret Roach has been a long-time resident in Douglaston.

Her father was Sports Editor of the New York Times. Daughter Margaret was editorial director of Martha Stewart Living and worked a decade each at the Times and Newsday. She then walked away from the corporate world to her garden in the Hudson Valley.

She’s written a prize-winning book on gardening, teaches and lectures on gardening and does a best gardening blog.

I’ll be introducing her at The Adult Program, located at 30 Cumberland Avenue in Great Neck, at 7 p.m. on April 19 for an event during which she will share her gardening secrets. The program is titled Nonstop Plants: A Garden for 365 Days.

Meanwhile, I’m sugaring fresh violets and rose petals to top ice cream cups (vanilla) nestled bouquet-like in a paper doily. I’ll display them that night on flower stand racks for viewing and snacking.

Incidentally - the story goes - that the Roach’s lovely, large, dusty-pink Mediterranean home in the Manor was originally built by a gentleman in Great Neck for his mistress. A lantern placed in its upstairs Douglaston window was viewable from Great Neck.