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Photo by Hank Shaw
Life has been a whirlwind lately, and things will only get faster in a few weeks when my book tour begins. I am getting headaches, something I don’t normally suffer from, I got my first cold in more than two years, and, on especially fun occasions, my right eye has started twitching. Lunches on most days have been triple-decker stress sandwiches. Hold the mayo.
Last week on a particularly eye-twitchy morning, I decided I needed to escape from my computer and drive away. I needed to go to my Happy Place. And while fans of Happy Gilmore all know that a man’s happy place does in fact involve women in a merrywidow carrying pitchers of beer, that’s not what I was thinking of at that particular moment. No, I needed to see the ocean. I needed to smell salt.
All of us, not just foragers, anglers and hunters, have our own Happy Place, and it’s usually outside somewhere. It is a spot where we become children again, wide-eyed and wondering, eager to follow whatever zig-zag trail our whims lead us down. It is a place we know intimately, yet discover newness each time we visit. It’s where we dream about being whenever we are down.
My true Happy Place is 3,000 miles to the East of where I sit. It is Block Island, part of the chain of islands that include the swankier Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard — which, for the record, is not in fact named after Martha Stewart, as one young person insisted to me the other day.
But as stressed as I was, I was not about to jump in my truck and drive 3,000 miles; road trips of that magnitude will come soon enough. Thankfully, I have a new Happy Place: Point Reyes National Seashore, on California’s North Coast.
Photo by Hank Shaw
The ocean is etched into who I am, at a cellular level. No matter how far from shore I find myself, I ache for it. I yearn for the chill caress of its fog, the throb of the surf — even the stink of low tide.
Point Reyes salves that ache. Even well inland, I can still feel its closeness, from the birds to the wind that tore through the hillsides I walked last week. The peninsula, an hour or so north of San Francisco and two hours from where I live, is more than just a pretty place. It is alive with Nature’s bounty. Mushrooms in fall and winter, quail everywhere — although, like all game animals, they are protected on Point Reyes — and berries in summer. Spring? Spring is a crazy-quilt of flowers.
Wild iris are a commonplace, blue beacons dotting the countryside. Underfoot, carpets of wild violets blanket sheltered spaces.
Photo by Hank Shaw
The violets are edible, the iris poisonous. These are plants I know well from the East. They are old friends. But as I walked, the peninsula revealed to me other sights I had not seen.
This is a sea pink. I found it at the top of one of the tallest hills in Point Reyes. it looks like a ready-made corsage, only in miniature.
Photo by Hank Shaw
Not five feet from the sea pinks was another new flower for me. This one was odd, a hairy-scary looking thing that could pass for a tiny version of Audrey, the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors. This one’s real name is “pussy ears.” I am assuming whoever named it was referring to cats…
Photo by Hank Shaw
Every mile I walked I found something new, something I’d never seen before. In between my little discoveries, I saw plenty of deer, and few other people. Wisps of fog rushed through the pines like ghosts late for a date with eternity. My ears were filled with the breath of the pines, and, far below me, the boom of the Pacific, a barely audible bass note.
I was on this hill checking my huckleberry patches. If their spring flowers hold into summer berries, this should be an epic year for the berries here in NorCal. Every bush was coated.
Photo by Hank Shaw
The huckleberries aren’t the only good things to eat on this stretch of Point Reyes. Within a mile, I found violets, cow parsnip, wild grape, salal berries, wild strawberries, manzanita, fiddleheads, yerba buena (a kind of mint), yerba santa (a lot like sage), horehound, miner’s lettuce, dandelion, salsify, blackberries, currants, and even Oregon grape.
Photo by Hank Shaw
I almost shouted out loud when I spotted the Oregon grape’s canary flowers; I’m certain I had a shit-eating grin on my face that I did my best to hide from a couple passing hikers. I’d been searching for this berry for two years. The only other place I’ve found them is, oddly, the parking lot of my gym — and I don’t feel like getting arrested for poaching berries, so they’re off limits. I can legally pick up to a quart of these at Point Reyes, however.
Oregon grape is tart and bold, while its neighbor, the salal, is sweet but lacks acid — put together they are a perfect combination for pies, ice cream, syrup, even wine or liqueur. I can’t wait to return for them in July.
And that’s the thing about a Happy Place. It beckons to you always, no matter what the season, what the harvest. And when you arrive, it welcomes you with peace and loveliness, and, quite possibly, a good meal. As I drove home after a day on the hillside, I listened to the radio: familiar, comforting songs playing, my headache forgotten. And finally, my goddamn eye had stop twitching.
I love Point Reyes. When I lived in SF in my 20′s I went there as much as I could. Beautiful! Wonderful pictures Hank! I hope you get to feeling better.
Ahhhh, the smell of salt tickles the nose and brings a calm to the nerves.
I completely and fully understand this need. Glad your headache is gone.
Good luck on the book tour..Alan
I grew up in Marin, and spent many happy times on the Pt Reyes peninsula long before it became a National Seashore. I remember where what is now scrub brush on the way to the light house used to be pea fields. Hunted ducks in the Limantour Lagoon. Hunted the big glass balls the Japanese used to use for net floats on the other sice of the Pacific and would float all the way to the Pt Reyes beaches.
I am interested that you found wild strawberries there, though, since that has been one foraging quarry our family has sought all over Marin for more years than I care to count. My younger brother, who spent almost 30 years in the CIA, has a map of favorite spots which he guards far more closely than any document he ever did while with the spooks. But we found precious few strawberries on that side of the San Andreas Fault until somehwere around the Boliinas mesa. I think there are some basic flora differences on each side of that fault running through Tomales Bay. No redwoods to the west, no Bishop pines to the east. No or damn few wild strawberries to the west, more to the east. Wish I couldhave joined you on your trek to solitude!
FYI, I have two of your books ordered, one for my friend who found your Red Bull pheasant recipe so great. Good luck on your tour, and hope you sell lots!
Love this post! It describes exactly why I feel Blest every day that I wake up because I am now priviledged in my old age to be living on beautiful Cape Ann. This little Island has all the type of things you have just described in this blog. Happy you were able to find a place to escape to. It is vital to have a place to go to that fills the needs of your spirit and soul. Blessings to you and love!
Mum
Like Peter, I grew up in Marin. Instead of hunting or foraging, my time outdoors in the MMWD, on Mt. Tam or at Point Reyes was spent riding horses or mountain bikes, or trail-running. I was always most charmed by the arrival of the wild irises, and especially excited to find the pale pinky-white ones in the shadier places. And I will always associate this part of the world with 1) dusty patches of ripening blackberries on a hot buzzy summer day and 2) Mrs. Terwilliger showing us miner’s lettuce and encouraging us to nibble on it. Glad you like this place, Hank; it’s always been my most happy place, too.
As if I wasn’t already too impatient for those huckleberries at Point Reyes to fruit and ripen, so I could get to my favorite picking site, Hank…
At least I cut some starts today from the bluebberry bush in my backyard, to hopefully have some more to plant by next year, and take my mind off my fanaticism for vaccinium.
Mmm … you just made me want to hop in the car RIGHT NOW and head up that ways. Definitely my happy place, too, though I tend to favor Western Sonoma county.
What a beautiful post. The ocean has always been my happy place. Isn’t it amazing that we have all of nature to balance us and quiet our head radios?
Hope you are rejuvenated and ready for the adventure you are about to embark on.
I grew up in Rhode Island and share your attachment for Block Island. I gasped when you named it – it’s beyond beautiful to me. I hope to be there sometime later this summer. Sigh.
Heather: Stress comes and goes. I thrive on a certain level – makes me feel alive. I get all wiggly when I truly have nothing pressing on me.
Thanks, Alan! I’ll need all the luck I can get.
Peter: I’d love to go back to Point Reyes with you, and thanks for ordering the book! Maybe we can make a trip in late June?
Laura: You really had a teacher named Mrs. Terwilliger? Classic.
Cork: All in due time. Enjoy the spring for what it is! Turkeys and morels and surf perch and miner’s lettuce and, well, you get my point.
Sean: Where do you go in western Sonoma? Private or public land?
Janis: I am feeling better, thanks! Ready for the adventure? Not quite, but I still have two weeks…
Phyllis: I miss The Block so much! Been going there, on and off, for 35 years.
Headaches and eye-twitching is nothing to laugh at Hank, but I know this has been a particularly tough year for Nothern Californianers (I just made that up). Although I grew up here and lived in the San Joaquin/Sacramento Valleys for most of my life, I should be immune to the various and many allergies that many outsiders suffer from. That wasn’t the case this year. They hit me like a TON of bricks. Normally? I’m sidelined for a week and life is good again. This year it hit the second week of April and is only now starting to wind down. Point is? It’s been a tough spring. Hang in there…
I did the exact same thing when I found oregon grape down here! Though I only just used the berries last year for the first time; the roots are one of my favourite liver medicines ever,
Gorgeous pictures, and I agree with you about the sea. I often feel like it’s salt water in my veins not blood.
I know this is off topic, but have you ever made anything with desert parsley? I’m seeing it everywhere and am coming up blank as to what to do with it.
Laura, did you live in Belevedere/Tiburon where Mrs. Terwilliger did? (Yes, Hank, she really existed – what a great lady). We did from 1962-73 and our kids used to follow her.
Name a date Hank – I hope by late June I’ll be a lot more mobile than I am right now as this fractured soup bone continues to heal!
Thanks for sharing your Happy Place, Hank. Beautifully written!
The journey over on the ferry to Block Island is a vacation in itself!
Wish I could say that publishing a book was all about enjoying the accomplishment. I think I work harder now on the PR and making it work than I did writing and recipe development. Hang in there. I went up “home” for a walk in the woods just a week ago myself. Same reason. Found some morels, too.
Thirteen years ago (nearly to the day), I embarked on a two-week, solo, foodie road trip. I packed cooking equipment and drove up the coast from Los Angeles to Mendocino County, stopping every two or three days at motels with kitchenettes, preparing all my meals from whatever locally-produced foods I could buy. I have many great memories of that trip–eating raw (live) deep-water shrimp right out of the shell on Avila Beach Pier, hunting for abalones in a minus tide on the Medocino coast–but my very, very best memory is of spending several days in a rental house in Pt. Reyes Station. I hiked for miles in Pt. Reyes, revelling in the astonishing beauty of the area, fell completely in love with it. I also ate very well–Cowgirl Creamery cheese, Tomales Bay oysters, the patch of miner’s lettuce in my rental’s side yard…Your post brought it all back! Glad you have such a magical place near you to escape the stress. Best of luck with the book tour.
I’ve never seen those pussy ears mariposa lily before. They are fantastic!
You know, I think there are maybe two fundamental types of people. The beach bums – my wife definitely is one of those. And though we both grew up in the same place near the Jersey Shore, I turned out to be a mountain goat. Love beaches, but dense forested mountains do it for me. I guess there are also desert foxes, prairie chickens, swamp rats. It can’t just be that we gravitate toward the places we were raised.
Ken