Roll the green basil and opal basil leaves lengthwise and then thinly cut crosswise.

Ruby Coleslaw Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes, including macerating 1 small head red cabbage, 1 pound Salt 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1 medium red onion, sliced paper thin 1/4 cup raspberry vinegar 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil Freshly ground black pepper 1/3 cup finely chopped fresh basil, preferably purple opal basil.

Fines Herbes also has purple opal basil, lemon thyme and long branches of rosemary to use as skewers for grilling.

In this cavernous restaurant that opened a few weeks ago, the chef, Michael Kaphan, is turning out updated cafeteria classics like meatloaf and chili as well as seasonal dishes like chilled pea soup with white miso and opal basil.

This year the Park Seed Company is offering its own salad seasoning and garnish blend, a packet of two herbs, dark opal basil and smoky fennel, plus other salad herbs including chives, chervil and Italian flat parsley.

We'll make angel hair pasta, flecking the blond dough with the dark opal basil that grows by our kitchen door.

Each tower was filled with fresh goat cheese mixed with minced opal basil, chervil, tarragon, chives and flat parsley.

Squid was perfectly sauteed on a mound of lettuces, fresh dill and opal basil, tossed with little taste-shocks of shredded ginger.

A line of unusually flavored vinegars produced by Chicama Vineyards in West Tisbury, Mass., includes one that is pastel pink, made with purple opal basil.