What if we cooked with the species we fear? This playful and thought-provoking book reimagines how we value the living world around us. Created by artist Luke Casserly during a six-month residency as Dublin City Council’s Biodiversity Artist in Residence, it asks what might happen if we approached so-called invasive species with curiosity rather than alarm.

Blending ecological research, storytelling, and original recipes, Pesky Nature challenges the language we use to describe non-native plants - “invasive,” “undesirable,” “pesky” - and considers instead what they might reveal about resilience and adaptation. Drawing on city walks and conversations with council staff, Casserly explores how urban biodiversity is shaped by these resilient outsiders.

The book features six recipes by artists and collaborators including Anne Kuehnert, Gareth Kennedy, Christopher McMullan, and Louis Haugh who transform plants like Japanese knotweed, three-cornered leek, and sea buckthorn into jams, pestos, ferments, and syrups.

This is not a celebration of invasiveness, but an invitation to reimagine our relationship with the species we live alongside. Both nourishing and provocative, it reminds us that complexity and diversity hold lessons for how we might learn to empathise with the natural world.