Homemade root beer is easy to make when you use this syrup as a base. No fermentation needed, you just add it to sparkling water and you’re done. And if you live east of the Great Plains, sassafras lives everywhere.
How-To (DIY stuff)
Cooking and Eating Shad
Cooking and eating the American shad used to be part of any angler’s skill set. No longer. All those bones have defeated many a would-be shad eater. But here’s how to cook shad and actually enjoy it. Everything you need to know about dealing with a fish whose Latin name is “tastiest.”
How to Catch Pacific Rockfish
There is no form of fishing I am better at than bottom fishing in the ocean. And here in the West, that means rockfish (rock cod) and lingcod. Here’s how to catch more, from gear to technique, to little tricks and tips that have helped me over the years.
Brewing Gruit and Other Herbal Beers
Gruit beer, which is beer made without hops, or with hops as a minor addition, is an ancient practice that deserves to be revived using the wild edible plants all around us.
How to Eat Bracken Fern Safely
Bracken fern lives all over the world. And most every place it lives, people eat it. Yet it’s recently been branded as a carcinogen. That seems to be true, but like all things, the poison’s in the dose.
How to Eat Cholla Buds
Cholla buds are edible, believe it or not. Here’s how to harvest, prepare, store and eat the buds from the cholla cactus, which live in the American Southwest.
Velosa, My Illicit Love
Every spring I have a brief fling with my illicit lover, Amanita velosa. She is the sweetest, most lovely mushroom I’ve ever eaten, and I spend long hours looking for her. Here’s how to safely identify this mushroom, and how to cook it.
How to Render Duck or Goose Fat
Learning how to render duck fat isn’t hard, but there are a few tricks to know. Here’s how I do it with both wild or farmed ducks and geese. We also have a new video showing you the process.