Unless you are an eater of American shad, that giant river-running herring anglers greet eagerly every spring, you might not fully appreciate just how elated I am right now. You see, I have solved the most vexing problem facing any shad angler: How to deal with the bones of a fish the Indians referred to as [...]
As my late stepfather Frank used to say, timing is everything in life. This is especially true with all things wild. Unlike a garden, where you can manipulate when you plant and when you harvest, gathering wild food is something that must be done at precisely the right moment. But judging when that right time [...]
May is a wonderful month. Flowers are everywhere, fishing is getting into gear and the summer garden is laden with promise. Foraging can be a little thin in my neck of the woods, however, although there is one delight to be had: Elderberry flowers. After getting the lay of the land along the American River [...]
I haven’t eaten duck in a while, so I thought I’d thaw out a wood duck breast for dinner the other day. That’s as far as I’d gotten in my thinking when it came time to make dinner. Not all of my meals are well-planned operations. Many times I start with one ingredient and build [...]
I see salsify. It’s everywhere. And I didn’t know it was salsify. Until now. I just wrote about how most of the people who use the American River Parkway have no idea about the bounty that grows all around them. Well, as it happens I am not immune to that blindness. We have had wild [...]
Foragers are always eyeing the world around them, sizing it up to see what might be tasty. This is why most hunter-gatherer societies are nomadic, meandering from place to place in search of the best stuff to eat at any given moment. The point of agriculture is that you always know where that stuff will [...]
I do a great many of the things I do simply because I can. Making paprika at home is one of those things. One of my life’s guiding notions has been that people should be good at something — maybe several things — and then be basically competent in many other things. Writing, cooking, fishing and foraging [...]
Holly and I just returned home from our trip to New York City for the James Beard Awards, and as many of you already know, I did not win. And in what initially appeared to be a potentially unpleasant twist, my fellow nominees at Sunset magazine were the only other group seated at our table. [...]
