When was the last time you made room in your vegetable garden for something a little out of the ordinary that you’d never grown or maybe even tasted before?

I don’t know of anyone who speaks out more passionately or eloquently in behalf of exceptional vegetable varieties than Lane Selman, who’s introduced an ever-widening audience—myself among them—to many of her favorites over the years, like distinctive peppers and an expanded palette of winter crops, including a delicious diversity of radicchio.

Now Lane has a cookbook coming out in September, too, called “Radicchio: A Celebration of the Beloved Italian Vegetable,” a crop many Americans didn’t know much about not so long ago, but do now, partly thanks to her.

Whether in her work as a professor of practice at Oregon State University and the Culinary Breeding Network that she founded in 2012, or through the popular celebratory event she organizes to showcase standout organic varieties, Lane brings stakeholders together to collaborate—plant breeders, chefs, farmers, and even just us eaters—in the name of educating all involved and improving quality in vegetables, fruits, and grains.

She’s co-hosting an event Aug. 30th in Cold Spring, N.Y., and another Oct. 24th in Portland, Ore., that I’m looking forward to hearing more about too, besides that upcoming Radicchio cookbook.

We talked recently about radicchios and some of the other ingredients Lane finds most irresistible this harvest season that you might want to put on the menu or try growing yourself.

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