Star Nursery teams with Las Vegas restaurants to feature fresh ingredients in culinary events

Where can you go to cultivate ideas on family meal planning?

How about Star Nursery?

The longtime Las Vegas one-stop shop for plants and lawn care plans to host another of its culinary events from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 6 at the Cheyenne location, 7330 W. Cheyenne Ave. Details are still being finalized regarding which area restaurant will be featured.

“We sell herbs and veggies, so we’re doing this as a way to promote that program and basically give people that confidence to know you can grow things in your backyard and cook them in your own kitchen,” said Crystal Gwaltney, marketing specialist for Star Nursery. “We want people to have that true garden-to-table experience.”

Various chefs have partnered with the nursery for the series. The first event was on Feb. 17 at the Charleston location, 8170 W. Charleston Blvd., when chef Robert Camacho of Honey Salt, 1031 S. Rampart Blvd., demonstrated a garden-inspired salad.

Gardening enthusiasts were treated to another one on May 19 at the Tropicana location, 9480 W. Tropicana Ave. That evening featured John McKibben, owner of Grape Street Cafe, Wine Bar & Cellar in Downtown Summerlin, who demonstrated how to make meals straight from one’s garden, using yellow squash and zucchini.

“I’ve been here in town for 32 years, and we all know Star Nursery, one of the best places there is to buy plants, your herbs,” McKibben said. “This is something totally different because it gets you out of the kitchen, it’s good for your (diet), the whole nine yards.”

He demonstrated the spiralizer and how quickly it churned out noodle-like strands of squash. The vegetable “pasta” was then flash-fried in a pan with olive oil and herbs and topped with a simple marinara.

“You have to think outside the box and go healthy,” McKibben said. “You can change it up and add onion, tomato, mushrooms — the possibilities go on and on. I could make this with garlic and olive oil and no marinara, and it’d taste amazing.”

He pan-fried the vegetables to the point where they still had a crispness and said cooking them longer would make them softer, which was fine.

Pam Buckholz said she attended the last event as well, the reason she had come on this night.

“That chef made a salad, and he used yellow radishes, which I had never had before,” she said. “They’re a little on the sweeter side.”

Part of the evening featured Paul Noe, merchandiser and horticulture adviser for Star Nursery, sharing how to grow things in the heat.

“We all know it’s 100,000 degrees here in the summer, but you can still grow things here,” he said.

When attendees had specific questions, Noe pulled items off the shelves and passed them around. Some people used their cellphones to take a snapshot of the labels.

Noe had another suggestion for those who like decorative pots: If they are dark, they could heat up too much in the summer heat and damage the roots, he said. The solution was to keep the plant in its original pot and set that pot inside the decorative one.

Visit starnursery.com or call the Cheyenne location at 702-645-2400.

To reach Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan, email jhogan@viewnews.com or call 702-387-2949.