Fat of the Land

Cantonese Shrimp & Winter Mushrooms

2012-01-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

Happy year of the dragon! We celebrated earlier this week with a feast that included this classic Cantonese preparation, adding to the wok a few handfuls of wild winter mushrooms from Northern California to make it even better. Black trumpets and yellowfoot chanterelles, though not typical Asian fare, are well suited to such a dish with their slightly fruity flavors. 2 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp

California Is for Foragers

2012-01-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

I dodged Seattle's Snowpacalypse 2012 for a week in NorCal, fleeing back home just as the volley of storms continued south and transformed the Chetco, Smith, and other coastal rivers into angry brown torrents. This was a "working vacation" spent gathering material for the next book, but it was also an excuse to see some of the best that the region has to offer. In a brief week I managed to pack

Candy Cap Braised Pork

2012-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Most recipes for candy cap mushrooms are sweet pastries, puddings, and other desserts. Yet candy caps, with their essence of maple syrup, also demand to be paired with pig. Having made the classic baked treat à la fungi—Candy Cap Cookies—I decided to switch my experiments to something savory (though a Candy Cap Bread Pudding sounds pretty good, too). So I went to my local meat shop and got a

New Classes Announced

2012-01-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be returning again this year to Bainbridge Island Parks & Recreation to teach foraging classes. To see class descriptions, click here and scroll down to pages 35 -36 to "Bounty of the Land." You can also find updated class listings (plus readings, lectures, and so on) posted in the right column of this blog near the top, under the heading "Upcoming Events &

Candy Cap Cookies

2012-01-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

Ever eaten mushroom cookies? Nah, not that kind. These cookies will only give you a sugar high. This is a post I meant to write more than a year ago, after making a trip to Mendocino at the end of November, just as the California mushroom season was hitting its stride and Washington State was nodding off for the season. Here we are little more than a year later in the same place: my home turf is

Loss of a Friend

2011-12-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

My friend Christina Choi passed away yesterday. Christina was a nurturing soul who loved to feed people with her food, warmth, and good spirit. During its brief run, her restaurant Nettletown in Seattle developed a devoted following and probably offered the highest ratio of wild to conventional food of any regularly operating restaurant in the country. To eat at Nettletown was to know exactly

Truffle Time

2011-12-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

The holiday season isn't just about turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. It's also peak time for truffles. And few foods can make us swoon like these odd fungal tubers. Properly prepared, they might be the sexiest of all our ingredients, evoking even more intense longing than oysters or chocolate. But how many people in this country, even food-obsessed people, can say they've had a mind-blowing

Eat Your Weedies

2011-12-02T10:35:00.000-08:00

Is wild food the new pork belly? My Google alert for "foraging" dings nearly every day with a fresh article on the joys of finding and cooking wild edibles. The New Yorker jumped on the bandwagon recently in their annual food issue with a piece by Jane Kramer in which she forages her way across Europe. The last 18 months have seen the publication of foraging guide books by my pal Hank Shaw with

Winter Mushrooms

2011-11-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

It's not officially winter yet but we had a hard frost in Seattle the other morning and I-90 was closed at Snoqualmie Pass due to heavy snowfall. Most mushroom hunters figure, "Put a fork in the season. It's done." Not so. This is the time of year to find cold-loving species such as hedgehogs and winter chanterelles (aka yellowfoot). Look for them in wet coastal woods where there's plenty of

Huckleberry Egg Custard

2011-11-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

The other day while mushroom hunting out on the Olympic Peninsula, I came across some huckleberry patches that were absolutely loaded with ripe berries. My daughter is a huckleberry fanatic. She eats hucks with her pancakes, in her yogurt, over ice cream. Score! I surprised Ruby with my huckleberry haul when she got home from school. We made egg custards for dessert and topped them with the

Sichuan Chicken & Matsutake with Vinegar

2011-11-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

To spend several days with matsutake pickers in Oregon and not come home with even a flag for my efforts was something of a dropped ball. So I spent a day at the coast yesterday picking yellowfoot and hedgehogs plus a few lingering kings and chanterelles—and a surprise late flush of matsi. Yes! They were fruiting on the edges of an old railroad grade in private timberlands where the steam

Matsutake Camp

2011-10-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I traveled down to Oregon with photographer Eirik Johnson (check out his work here) to pitch my tent at a matsutake camp in the Central Cascades of Oregon, on the edge of the high windblown desert. (More on the unlikely setting later.) We stayed at the smaller camp in the woods near Crescent Lake, where a mushroom buyer named Joy was kind enough to give us space behind his buy

Wok-fried Shrooms

2011-10-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

I went a-pickin' this week. It's been a disastrous fall mushroom season in the Pacific Northwest, depending on your point of view. Hot temps the last two weeks of August followed by drought in September burned the primordia where it emerged from the duff, resulting in major crop failure for Cascade Mountain porcini, matsutake, and lobster mushrooms. Chanterelle patches burned and then partially

Salal Preserves

2011-10-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

Salal, along with the tree that it often associates, Douglas fir, is one of the most iconic plants of the Pacific Northwest. You might even say it's a well known shrubbery. And if saying this word makes you want a shrubbery, well then you might just have to watch this. Back to salal. The binomial is Gaultheria shallon. It's a member of the heath family, Ericaceae. In researching this post, I was

Fascinating Fungi

2011-10-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

I spent the first 22 years of my life in and around New England, oblivious to the diversity of fungi in the neighborhood. The other day my brother was visiting our parents in Connecticut and noticed a parade of mushrooms on the lawn. Identifying fungi via smart phone is a notoriously dumb idea, so I'm sending them a copy of Lawrence Millman's new field guide to the Fascinating Fungi of New

Camper's Fettuccine Alfredo with Smoked Salmon & Asparagus

2011-10-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

Any idea what this is? Okay, let's take a step back for a better look. Yes, it's my smoker. I think I may be in lurve with it. Smoked food is good food. Smoke up a whole chicken and you might never roast one again. Pork shoulder, brisket, oysters—it's all good, as the kids say. And nothing beats smoked salmon. This is how I eat salmon year-round. Brined, smoked, and vacuum-packed. You can keep

Veal Shank with Saffron Cream & Chanterelles

2011-09-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

The fall mushroom season here in Washington looked promising back in July and early August. We had a wet spring, there was good snowpack in the mountains, and another "marine layer" summer seemed likely. All that changed by mid-August. The weather turned hot and dry. Chanterelle pinheads—those baby mushrooms barely visible in the moss—either dried up or went dormant. Lobsters called it quits. And

The Barter System

2011-09-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner was the result of ways old and new: the barter system and social networking. Last fall a friend of mine on Twitter, Corky Luster, back-channeled me with a request: might I have some wild mushrooms to trade? As a matter of fact, I did. I set aside vacuum-sealed freezer bags of porcini and chanterelles. In return, he would give me a package of wild duck breast fillets. Corky,

Mountain Huckleberries

2011-09-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

I ate a bowl of blueberries the other morning, and while a bowl of blueberries is always welcome, it also reminded me why I take the trouble to head up into the mountains and spend a day picking huckleberries. The domesticated blue ain't got nothing over a wild huck. Just saying. This year isn't looking like a banner huckleberry harvest in the North Cascades, but anything is better than last

Pickled Kelp

2011-09-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Recently I camped out with the family at Deception Pass State Park, one of the true gems in Washington State's park system. While beach combing and fishing for humpies, we came across a six-foot long strand of bull whip kelp (Nereocyctis luetkeana) that had washed ashore. The kelp looked like it was still in good shape (it didn't have the white splotches characteristic of an over-the-hill

High Tide Soup

2011-09-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the pleasure of hanging out with a couple mad scientists of the kitchen in Washington's San Juan Islands. Eric (besides being an '80s pop aficionado and rapper-in-training) is a sous chef at Blueacre Seafood in Seattle and Scott is a software developer by day and the proprietor of the restlessly inventive Seattle Food Geek blog the rest of the time. It was my job to supply these

Mountain Morels

2011-09-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Morel season is over, but at the Perennial Plate my new friends Daniel Klein and Mirra Fine have captured on video the thrill of the hunt and the lip-smacking toast of success that is a fruitful morel foray in a truly beautiful place. Check it out! The Perennial Plate Episode 69: Mountain Morels from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.

Dept. of Horn-blowing

2011-08-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Here at FOTL headquarters we're pleased to announce a couple profile-raising media events of late. First, check out the September issue of Sunset magazine: "Digging for Dinner," page 80. The eight-page spread will tell you all you need to know to embark on a West Coast clamming adventure. Second, take a peek at Daniel Klein's latest webisode (#68) of Perrenial Plate, featuring seaside foragers

Red Huckleberries with Chef Donald Link

2011-08-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

New Orleans chef Donald Link (Herbsaint, Cochon) came to town last month to see what was happening in the Seattle food scene and film a few segments for his webcast Taste of Place on the Delish Channel. The chef wanted to spend a day foraging while he was here. Mid-July is actually an in-between time for the Northwest forager. Many of the spring greens have gone to seed and most berries are not

Telluride ShroomFest 31

2011-08-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

The mushroom people came out in full force this weekend in Telluride, Colorado, to celebrate fungal magic in its many-splendored glory. This was my first trip to ShroomFest, now in its thirty-first year and one of the biggest mushroom gatherings in the country. As I've said before, the mushroom people, with their appreciation of the outdoors and nature, fondness for good food and wine, and

Resident Silvers

2011-08-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've caught most of my salmon while standing either in a river or on a beach—I'm just too much of a cheapskate to hire a charter. Last week, though, with Hank and Holly in town, I took a rare opportunity to fish for salmon while standing on a boat. Here's the funny thing: I was standing on a boat within sight of a public beach where I sometimes stand with rod in hand for free. But

Honest Food

2011-07-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I don't have to introduce readers of this blog to Hank Shaw. Shaw is the proprietor of the Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog, which has been nominated for numerous awards and garnered two IACP medals. He's also—full disclosure—a friend of mine. Now Shaw has a new book out which is taking the foraging community by storm. It's called Hunt, Gather, Cook, which is a pretty good description of

Geoduck Crudo with Wild Wood Sorrel

2011-07-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

By now you know what a geoduck is. But what's a crudo? Besides being a hip culinary term that seems to be increasingly fashionable on both coasts, crudo means raw in Italian and is used to describe a raw fish dish that usually incorporates olive oil, sea salt, and some sort of citrus or vinegar. For shellfish enthusiasts, a crudo is another way to enjoy the raw neck meat of a geoduck clam. In

The Gray Morel

2011-07-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere recently that North America is the center of morel diversity on the planet. This news shouldn't surprise hardcore morel hunters in the New World, who already know firsthand about morels yet to be described in the scientific literature, some of which have funny common names like "bananas" and "pickles." The pickle, for instance, is a type of burn morel found late in the season

Horsing Around: Clam and Corn Chowder

2011-07-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned I'm originally from New England? Thought so. This simple fact gives me license to bitch about the lack of a decent clam shack in Seattle. Make that the West Coast. Sure, we have oyster bars like Walrus and Carpenter, Frank's, and Elliott's Oyster House. But I'm talking about clam shacks, the sort of place where a dozen oysters on the half shell can commingle peacefully with a

Forager's Double Header

2011-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

***THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT*** Clam Bake with Hank & LangJoin author-foragers Hank Shaw and myself for a memorable day on the shellfish beds of Puget Sound. Bring a clam rake, not your pillow! We'll be digging limits of Manila clams and other bivalves to cook right on the beach. Learn the finer points of shellfish habitat, identification, processing, and cuisine. You'll need a bucket, rubber boots,

Earthly Combo: Stinging Nettles & Morels

2011-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

This spring I've happened on a seasonal pairing that will be a regular part of the menu from now on: stinging nettles and morels. In particular, the combo involves Stinging Nettle Pesto with sauteed morels. You might wonder whether these two supremely earthy tastes would cancel each other out. To the contrary, they complement each other, one cool and woodsy with a sharp bite; the other rich and

Kiss My Geoduck

2011-06-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

This spring's shellfish classes have been more fun than I could have imagined. Any day playing at the shore is a day well spent, but when you add in a mix of interesting folks and the promise of fresh seafood cooked on site, the bonhomie is nearly boundless. Those of us who have been digging clams for years sometimes forget there's a learning curve to seafood foraging—from understanding the

Salmon with Pinot Noir Sauce & Morels

2011-06-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Columbia River spring chinook and many of the Alaskan salmon stocks happen to be running when the land fish—morels—are spawning...err...sporing. No surprise that a fatty, omega 3-laden fish happens to pair very nicely with an earthy mushroom that is equally fleeting in this life. And that pairing would be fine if we stopped right there, but a red wine reduction—in particular, a Pinot Noir

Spring Mushroom Camp, Sisters, OR

2011-06-09T21:54:00.000-07:00

Pickers and buyers at the Jack Creek commercial mushroom camp, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon, June 1 - 2, 2011.

Oyster Bánh Mì

2011-06-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

With the warm weather we bid adieu to oysters. For the next few months they'll be on the spawn as the water approaches temperatures fit for reproduction. Hence the old adage about not eating oysters in months without an "R": May, June, July, August. Like most adages, there's some truth at the heart of the matter, though in this age of carefully farmed shellfish, not a month goes by that you

Chinese Ramps

2011-06-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

At the height of my recent Michigan ramp delirium, I found myself at the Marquette airport clutching a duffel bag stuffed with ramps. "Would you like to carry that on?" inquired the checker. A quick calculus in my ramp-besotted head. "Um, I guess so." I wasn't letting go. "Don't let me talk you into it. We can check it." Was this some sort of double-speak? Were they toying with me? More to the

The Great Boyne City National Morel Festival

2011-05-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

To hear five-time national morel hunting champion Tony Williams tell it, the bold idea of calling Boyne City, Michigan's, tribute to everything Morchella a national festival was easy. No one else had one. Certainly not 51 years ago when it was first hatched. The hunting contest itself was born in a bar. “Guys were arguing,"explained Tony (pictured with the rustic furniture he builds). "It was a

On Ramp

2011-05-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

My friends Russell and Carol left Seattle several years ago when Russ, a Blake scholar and artist, got a teaching gig at Northern Michigan University. Carol, also an artist, had been a cook at the first good restaurant I ever ate at in Seattle, the Dahlia Lounge. If you guessed that I visited their home in Marquette because I missed Carol's food, you wouldn't be far off. But mostly I miss the

School's Out...side

2011-05-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

If there's one message I want to send via this blog and my book, it's this: Get outside. The more time we spend in the outdoors reconnecting with the natural world, the healthier our minds and bodies will be and the more likely we'll become good stewards of the environment. That's my opinion, at least. Last week I had a chance to put this simple idea to work with a dozen high school students. We

Spicy Thai Basil Clams

2011-05-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Last week I shucked and jived with my first shellfish class. We couldn't have asked for a better day. The sun was out, as were bald eagles, plenty other clam diggers, and daytrippers shaking off what has been a tough spring of record rain and cold. A herd of elk even joined us on the beach to take in the sun. John Adams, manager of Taylor Shellfish's Dosewallips farm, was also on hand to share

Good Book

2011-05-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

When it comes to stewardship of the seas, we've been greedy, irresponsible, and just plain stupid. We take too many fish, wreck habitats in the process, and feign ignorance when it suits us. Really, we could use a few old-fashioned whacks on the bottom from Sister Nature. But being human, we don't like being lectured to or ordered around. This is why Becky Selengut, the author of Good Fish:

Sichuan Dry-Fried Fiddleheads

2011-04-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Some of our wild foods get points for style. Fiddleheads, f'rinstance. They're just so cool to look at. In my neck of the woods it's fiddlehead time right now. In fact, those at sea level have already unscrolled their lovely coiled shoots, but several hundred feet higher in the lower foothills of the Cascades the fiddleheads are just now awaking to spring (even though they got hailed on the

4 Courses

2011-04-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

Literature is sustenance—we all know that—so why not pair writers with dinner? Join me on Wednesday, April 27, at the Richard Hugo House for an evening of food and words with myself and three other Seattle writers. Food will be provided by Tom Douglas, Taylor Shellfish, and High 5 Pie. Four courses, four readings. I'll be shucking metaphorical oysters to accompany the real thing. The other

Bay Area Mini Tour

2011-04-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Bay Area Foragers, Cooks, Outdoors Enthusiasts & Readers: I'm happy to announce I'll be visiting your lovely habitat (and my former stomping ground) April 19 thru 21 to read at local book stores and give a slide lecture at the Sonoma Mycological Society. Come by and say hello. You can find me: April 19, Omnivore Books, San Francisco, 6 p.m. April 20, Copperfield's Books, Sebastopol, 7 p.m.

Beginner Shellfish Foraging & Cooking Classes

2011-04-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

In association with Bainbridge Island Parks & Rec, I'll be teaching three shellfish foraging and cooking classes this spring. Two classes will focus on steamer clams and oysters, while the third will be in pursuit of the legendary geoduck, world's largest burrowing clam. May 1: Shellfish Foraging & Cooking. Bring your rubber boots and bucket. We'll learn how to dig for clams, shuck oysters, and

Environmental Writers Workshop

2011-04-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Seattle's Burke Museum is sponsoring its third annual Environmental Writers Workshop on Saturday, April 23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Award-winning authors and journalists Carol Kaesuk Yoon (Naming Nature) and Bruce Barcott (The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw) will join me in leading both class-based and field-based sessions in this all-day workshop. Enrollment is open to 40. We'll divide into

New Foraging Classes

2011-04-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

By popular demand, I've added a new roster of foraging classes. These are in addition to the classes being offered by Bainbridge Island Parks & Rec. We'll meet in the Cascade foothills east of Seattle for a narrated 3-hour walk through a variety of landscapes. The class will focus on the identification of numerous edible plants and fungi, their life-cycles, and habitats. We'll also discuss proper

Geoduck Recipes

2011-03-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

I came into a geoduck windfall the other day. A photo team was in town to shoot some clam digging action, and to supplement the razors and littlenecks we dug at the beach, they picked up a few photogenic 'ducks from the market. By the end of the weekend I was in proud possession of four live geoducks. What to do? If morels were popping (they're not), I'd consider my Sichuan surf 'n' turf, or

Italian Nettle Sausage Pie

2011-03-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

And I always thought baking was for control freaks. Silly me. Kate McDermott—aka the Pie Lady, dubbed "the rock star of pie" by Seattle Magazine—is not your typical baker. She doesn't worry about humidity or get hung up by exact measurements. She goes against the grain, which is her way. It's more of a Zen thing. "Feel the dough," she likes to say, only half-kidding. The evening began with a

Announcing Beginner PNW Foraging Classes

2011-03-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

Sign-up is now open CLOSED for three beginner foraging classes this spring in the Cascade foothills near Seattle. ***Stay tuned for more classes offered in the future.*** Each class will be a three-hour trail walk (2 miles, easy terrain) with an emphasis on identification and food preparation. We'll examine dozens of wild plants and fungi that can be used in the kitchen. Trailside discussion will

New in Paperback!

2011-03-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that my book, Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, is now out in paperback. You can buy a copy at all the usual places: Amazon, Powell's, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore. A few Quotes & Reviews: "Once in a while a book crosses my desk that gives me pause, and once in a very great while a book will resonate with me in such a way that it becomes

Wild Indian: Stinging Nettle Paneer & Porcini Chana Masala

2011-03-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a kitchen experiment yields better results than you ever imagined, and you feel like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein. Happily, my recent creation neither ran amok through the neighborhood nor incited a pitchfork mob—though it did get a wild applause from my dinner guests. I'm talking about my Stinging Nettle Paneer. The dreaded stinging nettle, as most of us have known since

My New Column!

2011-03-01T11:45:00.000-08:00

In their infinite wisdom—or maybe a moment of deadline and coffee-induced weakness—the editorial folks at Seattle Magazine have handed over a few column inches to this here foraging scribbler. It's called...drumroll..."Cook's Adventures." Every other issue I'll be taking readers on a jaunt to some of my favorite outdoor grocery stores to sample the wild foods therein. For the inaugural column we

Winter Pick

2011-02-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

A month doesn't go by on the mushroom trail without some variety of fungi getting picked, packed, and sent to market. Between Alaska and California, you can harvest wild mushrooms virtually any day of the year. Itinerant circuit pickers, though a far cry from snowbird retirees in white shoes, operate on a similar premise: they move south in the coldest months, calling Northern California's mild

Northern California: From Woods to Plate

2011-02-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Bay Area Readers: Next week I'll be visiting your neck of the woods to give a couple talks on wild mushroom cookery. I'll be speaking (and showing slides) at the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz on Wednesday, February 16, and again the following night, Thursday, February 17, at the Bay Area Mycological Society in Berkeley. Come on by and say hello.

Field Trips and Workshops

2011-01-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

In upcoming months I'll be teaching a variety of classes on foraging, cooking, and writing in the Puget Sound region. One day maybe I'll get organized enough to send out a newsletter to those of you interested in such classes. In the meantime, check back here on the blog periodically to see what's being offered. I'll post dates in the right column. In an exciting new collaboration I'll be

What's up, Doc?

2011-01-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

Some of you might be wondering what happened to all the hunting talk. After all, I took Washington State's Hunter Education class and even went scouting and trap shooting with a friend of mine. Since then I've also visited my brother-in-law in Arkansas to go squirrel hunting. I had high hopes of making this Squirrel Gumbo. So what happened? Well, for one thing, I got skunked. Seems those

No Shrimp

2011-01-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

Are you sick of my mushroom posts yet? Here’s a change of scenery: Snowbird Central, the southern Gulf Coast of Florida. This is the only truly tropical corner of the continental U.S., where white shoes and blue hair are the norm. We went to visit the rellies, but the fish called, so we took a flyer and booked a half-day trip as a Christmas gift to ourselves. Guided fishing ain’t cheap. Yet when

Down the Rabbit Hole with David Arora, Part 2

2010-12-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I enjoy spending time with "the mushroom people." (Think 1950s sci-fi flick, with a menacing invasion of creatures who fail to conform to the American standard of ignorant mall-walker.) Many of the mushroom people I know, while being a diverse lot overall, share a few similar traits in common. They like to tromp around all day in the outdoors. By night they're in their

Down the Rabbit Hole with David Arora, Part 1

2010-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

"Whhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww..." That's the sound of me chasing the White Rabbit. And there before me, with a Cheshire Cat grin, is my bespectacled host, holding a platter of not-your-everyday food steaming in the kitchen of the Albion Biological Field Station. Any trip to Mendocino County can feel like something dreamed up by Lewis Carroll, but when it involves a half-dozen or more

A Super Duper Truffle Dog

2010-11-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of watching a truffle dog in action. Cooper, the super duper truffle hound, is half lab, a quarter bernese mountain dog, and a quarter shepherd. His owner, Anne Seward, like the owners of many interesting pets, has her own distinguished pedigree: she's related to the man responsible for "Seward's Folly." History buffs and denizens of America's Last Frontier

Rose Hip Jelly

2010-11-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

I've never seen as many wild rose hips as I saw in the upper Skeena watershed of British Columbia this fall. I was there to fish for steelhead and I suppose I might have earned a few raised eyebrows if I'd put down my rod and spent the rest of the trip picking hips, but when opportunity knocked I made sure to fill a bag. The banks of the Kispiox River in particular were covered with the bright

Last Ditch Chanterelle Soup

2010-11-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

Chanterelle season is coming to a close here in Washington State. Though we have yet to see a killing frost in Seattle, fall rains are transforming the chanties into big floppy, waterlogged monstrosities. The other day I found some twice the size of my fist. This time of year it pays to locate microclimates free of frost where chanterelles have enough cover to keep relatively dry. Even so,

Porcini and Eggplant Parmesan

2010-11-05T16:22:00.000-07:00

I was on the Oregon Coast last weekend—Rockaway Beach, to be exact—and can report that the coastal porcini north of Tillamook are on the way out. The beach pick is definitely over in Washington, for that matter. But as you move down the coast into California weather patterns change. A soaking rain in Mendocino a couple weeks ago kicked their season into gear and we should be hearing favorable

Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook

2010-11-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here at FOTL Headquarters we're honored to announce our selection in the brand new Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook! Last year food bloggers from around the world submitted entries to Foodista's contest—the first ever of its kind—and now the winners have been collected in this handsome full-color cookbook, which includes the text, photos, and recipes from the original blog

The Delivery

2010-10-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing effort to be a commercial mushroom gadfly—or maybe just a fly in the ointment—I hung out with the fellas at Foraged and Found Edibles the other day while they packed up a couple dozen restaurant shipments and made deliveries. It was a relatively quiet day. When I arrived at the warehouse (the owner's basement), Jonathan and Shane were busy sorting and cleaning mushrooms. Order by

Grilled Matsutake

2010-10-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Matsutake, which means "pine mushroom" in Japanese, isn't among my favorite of the wild edible mushrooms, but it's fun to forage and I enjoy preparing it in traditional Japanese recipes. Look for matsutake under conifers in well-drained, even sandy soils. Like porcini, it can be found near the ocean beaches of the Northwest and also in the mountains, especially in areas

The Ukrainian Connection

2010-10-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

You might not see these people around town. They stick together and avoid attracting attention. But in your local mushroom patch you're sure to find them. Eastern Europeans, that is. Poles and Czechs, Russians and Ukrainians, many of them recent immigrants in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. They have a long tradition of scouring the woods of their homelands for edible

Steelhead Camp

2010-10-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

My friend Beedle has been regaling me with tales of steelhead camp for as long as I can remember. A couple weeks ago I finally got to see it for myself. After an 18-hour drive from Seattle, plus a few hours of winks in Prince George, we pulled into camp on the Kispiox River, tributary to the Skeena, near the small community of New Hazelton, British Columbia, and just a few clicks above the

The Mushroom Camp

2010-10-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

In late September, with my friend Beedle (of Fat of the Land fame) at the wheel, I rode shotgun on a long drive up to northwest British Columbia to go steelheading (more on that in a future post). We camped on the banks of the Kispiox, tributary to the Skeena, and sure enough the first big rainstorm of the season blew out the entire system just a few days after our arrival. So much for fishing.

Game Hen with Chanterelles & Madeira over Parsnip Puree

2010-09-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

I had dinner at Tilth the other night in Seattle, owned by award-winning chef Maria Hines. One of the standouts of the evening was a small plate of pan-fried poussin. The chef de cuisine, Larkin Young, came out and told us just how he liked to cook the bird (finishing it with a nob of sizzling butter was key, he explained), and then, as we got to talking about mushroom hunting, it occurred to me

The Transaction

2010-09-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I joined Doug and his friend Jeff for another day of picking. Hanging out with this pair reminded me of the sort of male camaraderie that develops in close quarters. You'll find it in school dormitories, on fishing boats, in hunting camps. Old pals, they knew each other's foibles and weaknesses all too well and exploited them in an ongoing banter of inside jokes, ragging, and general

The Picker

2010-09-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

Doug makes his living as a full-time, year-round mushroom picker. He picks the Washington Coast near his Westport home in the fall, travels south to pick California in the winter, and marches back up the east slope of the Cascades following the spring pick, sometimes up into British Columbia if the pick is good. The other day I tagged along with Doug to see how it was done. To say Doug is an

Porcini 101: Porcini Risotto

2010-09-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

It's fall porcini time in the Pacific Northwest. This is perhaps my favorite of all the wild mushrooms. The season is late this year because of a lack of moisture in August. I found just two porcini while backpacking in the North Cascades over Labor Day, but they were prime specimens, perfect for risotto. After scouring the Web for risotto recipes the other day I got the impression that home

Into the Elwha

2010-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Say wha'? The Elwha River Valley, on the north end of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. Last week I backpacked into the Elwha Basin in Olympic National Park to see the place before it undergoes profound change next year. You see, in 2011 the process of undamming the Elwha will begin in earnest and five species of Pacific salmon will have a chance to re-colonize a river that historically

Huckleberry Streusel Coffee Cake

2010-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Lorna Yee over at The Cookbook Chronicles for winning my first ever recipe contest with her truly decadent Huckleberry Streusel Coffee Cake. You might recall I posted the call to action way back in February after tiring of the usual ho-hum Huckle Buckle. The judges included everyone in my immediate household, and while we sampled lots of delicious coffee cakes that did donuts

Batty

2010-08-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is one of those had to be there moments but I can't resist sharing this short video with you all. The past two weeks of cabin-sitting a friend's place off the grid in the remote Rogue River Canyon of southwestern Oregon was mostly a quiet affair, a vacation away from cell phones, laptops, blogging, Twitter, and the rest of the plugged-in foofaraws. Instead we basked in that rare

First Brookie on the Fly

2010-08-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly his first. Last year Riley hooked and caught a brookie on the fly with help from his dad. But this year the kid decided nine years old was about the right age to pick up a fly rod unaided, and who am I to argue? It will be sad to finally say goodbye to the Scooby-Do rod—we’ve had some good times with that stalwart member of our family angling arsenal. Riley caught

Angel Dust

2010-08-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

You hear the same old quote repeated endlessly about fennel pollen, something about the sprinkling of spice from the wings of angels. Let's just call it angel dust. You remember that stuff from late-night cop movies—a drug that made users goofy and totally out of their heads. Like truffles, saffron, and a handful of other exotic, pricey, and painstakingly harvested goodies, fennel pollen enjoys

Strawberry Fields

2010-08-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

While hunting porcini the other day in the Colorado Rockies we stumbled on a large patch of wild strawberries (Fragraria sp.). Score! It seems I never find wild strawberries back home before the animals get to them, but for whatever reason we hit the jackpot on this less familiar ground. The strawberry is one of those edible plants little improved by domestication. Sure, garden varieties are

Rocky Mountain Kings

2010-08-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

The biggest fruitings of king boletes I've ever seen haven't been in the Pacific Northwest. No, the Rockies own that distinction, in particular the high montane reaches of northern Colorado. We visit this region every year to see family. I can think of three separate occasions when I've hit the porcini jackpot dead-on. The first was a solo backpacking-fishing trip on the Colorado-Wyoming border

Sassy Saskatoons

2010-08-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Sassy might be overstating it. More like solid. Saskatoon berries and their close relatives in the Amelanchier genus fruit in 49 of 50 U.S. states (sorry Hawaii) and what they lack in edge or mystery they gain in abundance and flexibility. Saskatoons can be used in pies, cobblers, jams, sauces, and really whatever you require of a versatile berry, including pemmican. But get this: they're not

Purslane Salad

2010-08-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

The best things in life are free—and easy. Take this weed salad that uses purslane as the featured ingredient. It's delicious in inverse proportion to the time and skill required to make it. Which is to say it's really good and really simple. First, a word about weeds. You've heard me extol their virtues before. If you're still a non-believer that weeds can save the world, I insist you try this

Wild Berry Tartlets

2010-07-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

Lace Thornberg, editor of the Washington Trails Association magazine, joined me for a berry-picking hike on Tiger Mountain the other day. (If you're an outdoors enthusiast in the Northwest, you should check out WTA and consider becoming a member.) We had hoped to explore more far-flung woods—the North Fork Quinault rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula was at the top of my list—but summertime

Oregon-grape Preserves

2010-07-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

The state flower of Oregon looks like holly and grows throughout much of Cascadia. Anyone who spends time in the woods from Northern California up through British Columbia is familiar with its prickly green leaves, bright yellow blooms, and the tart berries that form in clusters in summer. It's not exactly trail food. Pick a few berries on a hike and you'll experience a lip-puckering flavor that

Sweet and Sour Geoduck

2010-07-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

A recent New York Times article about East Coast clam culture got me wondering: Why no clam shacks around Puget Sound? Day-trip to a beach near New York City or Boston or anywhere along the Jersey Shore and you're bound to stumble on a weathered, low-slung joint where the beer is cold and the clams are fresh. Near Seattle? Not so much. And please, don't try to sell me on Ivar's. The sad truth is

Great geoducks, Batman!

2010-07-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

A boy never forgets his first 'duck. Or his first German TV documentary shoot...Mare TV is in town, taking in the Seattle waterfront and its multi-splendored offerings of scenery, food, and fun. They were especially keen to sample what the old-timers politely call horseneck, so we saddled up the whole FOTL gang in our trusty Folksvagen and rode a ferry over to the far side of Puget Sound with a

Sea-Flavor Noodles with Porcini

2010-07-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Regular readers know I have a thing for Fuchsia Dunlop (even if I have to look up Fuchsia each time I need to spell it). More to the point: I like Sichuan, and Dunlop's cookbook Land of Plenty is a prized resource on this front. Not too long ago I would have scoffed at the idea of cooking Sichuan at home, but over time I've collected a small arsenal of Chinese pastes, oils, and other condiments,

Tagliolini with Porcini Sauce

2010-07-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

We celebrated a friend's birthday the other night at one of my favorite recent additions to the Seattle restaurant scene, a cozy little trattoria called Cascina Spinasse. Four hours later, after multiple courses and wines—and a midnight votive incident that luckily didn't torch the place—we stumbled home. But the next day I just had to call the restaurant to ask them about their porcini pasta.

Elderflower Syrup

2010-06-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

My new bumper sticker: I brake for champagne cordials. The other day while taking Hank and Holly on a mushroom odyssey I surprised a few drivers behind me in a curvy stretch of canyon by yanking my van off the road at speed and coming to a dusty stop in the dirt. A flat? Sudden engine trouble? Naw, I just happened to spy the creamy white flowers of a blue elderberry tree on the roadside.The blue

Little Pigs of Spring

2010-06-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

As feared, the sudden warming trend in my region caused a massive blowout of spring porcini ("little pigs" in Italian) at the lower elevations. I know you PacNor'westers have been craving sun and wondering if summer would ever show its face, but the same weather patterns that conspired to make this an epic morel year have put the kibbosh on our spring kings. Some of my patches haven't produced at

Morel Madness

2010-06-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Marty thinks I dreamed up this whole Fat of the Land thing so I'd have an excuse to spend more time outdoors. I'm not going to argue with that theory. Seems like I've been logging more nights in the woods lately than at home. As a result, here at FOTL headquarters we're way behind on bringing you the latest adventures in the field and in the kitchen. The cool, wet spring has produced an

Bracken Fern: To Eat or Not To Eat?

2010-06-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

The other day I ate a known carcinogen—a juicy char-grilled burger. I'm not alone in my cancer-baiting, certainly not this time of year when hamburgers and hotdogs are mainstays of the backyard barbecue. But to eat a handful of stir-fried bracken fern is to seemingly court disaster in some quarters. You see, bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is also known to contain carcinogens, specifically a

Sichuan Fish-Fragrant Geoduck with Morels

2010-06-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

The gloves are off here at FOTL headquarters and we're pumping a fist for that old favorite, surf 'n' turf. Again. Yeah, I know we've already gone a few rounds with this theme before: You'll remember my Kung Pao Geoduck with Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms and my X-Country Double Lobster Risotto. Now behold Sichuan Geoduck with Morels. And if anyone utters the "A" word—y'know, authenticity, or

Just Dig It

2010-05-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

One of the pleasures of this job is the chance to meet all kinds of folks who are working in the slow food movement. John Adams is one of them. He has a family-owned shellfish business in South Puget Sound and also manages one of Taylor Shellfish's larger operations on the Dosewallips tide flats of Hood Canal. The Dose as it's known (pronounced Doe-see) is one of those noteworthy Pacific

Spring Risotto with Morels, Fiddleheads & Asparagus

2010-05-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

Do I really need to say much about this dish or its use of the best of what the season has to offer? Nah. 1 dozen asparagus stalks20 fiddleheads15-20 medium-sized morels, halved1 cup risotto rice1 small onion, diced1 large garlic clove, diced1/2 cup white wine4 cups chicken broth1/4 cup parm, grated2 tbsp butter, dividedolive oil1. Cut 2-inch tops of asparagus; cut rest of stalk into 1-inch

Nature's Garden

2010-05-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Following in the footsteps of Euell Gibbons, Sam Thayer has inspired a generation to get outside and find wild food delicacies waiting beyond the back door. His first book, The Forager's Harvest, was a hands-on guide to the bounty around us, with an emphasis on those species found near his midwestern home. This April Thayer published his second volume, Nature's Garden, a guide that is at once

Salmon with Wild Sorrel Sauce

2010-05-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sorrel sauce is a classic French cream sauce that uses the tart, lemony potherb commonly known as sorrel (Rumex acetosa) as the defining ingredient. Oxalic acid, a naturally occurring compound in the plant, gives it this flavor. In small quantities sorrel makes a bright, lip-puckering addition to salads, soups, or sauces—but too much oxalic acid can be mildly toxic and hard on the digestive tract

Sea Scallops with Maple Blossom Pesto, Morels & Asparagus

2010-05-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

I missed the lowland blossoming of big-leaf maples, but now that it's morel time in the foothills I get another crack at the floral, slightly sweet blossoms. Maple blossoms can be added to salads, sautéed, or even used to make pesto. I blended equal portions of maple blossom and fresh mint from the garden to make this simple pesto. The rest of the ingredients are standard. Adjust as you see fit.