The other day I had some family over for a simple barbecue. I marinated a tri-tip, made panzanella with fresh heirloom tomatoes, garlic-rubbed bread and homemade pesto dressing, and assembled a fruit salad of strawberries and blueberries.

At the last minute I pulled out a cup of lemon verbena-infused simple syrup I had made for a fruit salad the week before. I didn’t really think anyone would want to drizzle any on the fruit. It’s the kind of thing that’s a little too different for these folks. But it ended up stealing the show.

My sister-in-law got up several times to get more fruit so she could eat more syrup. She even used her fingers to scoop up the last of the syrup on her plate. And this is a woman who doesn’t even really like blueberries because of the way they squish in her mouth (it’s one of her many, many bizarre food hang-ups).

Then the other day I found out my 2-year-old daughter, who, just a few weeks ago, showed an aversion to peaches and nectarines, will gorge on those exact fruits when they’re drizzled with the syrup.

Sure, any kid likes sweet stuff and the syrup is definitely sweet (it’s just a cup of sugar and a cup of water simmered together until the sugar melts), but the lemon verbena leaves I steeped in the syrup for a few minutes added distinctly floral, herbal, lemony notes that I didn’t think would go over well with some adults, let alone a toddler.

Now I’m wondering if I can add lemon verbena to spinach or broccoli.

By the way, lemon verbena is supremely easy to grow. Go to a good nursery, get a little plant and stick it in a sunny spot where your sprinklers will hit it. In no time it will become a big, leafy lime-green bush. And though it’ll die back to sticks in the winter, it’ll sprout a whole new batch of beautiful, slender, deliciously fragrant leaves next spring.

You can use the leaves to season anything that goes well with the flavor of lemon, like fish or pasta. And you can make tea with it, put the leaves in a glass of ice water or infuse it in syrup like I did and use it in fruit salads, iced tea, drizzled on poundcake … the list goes on.

–Danielle Centoni