Mushrooms
The common meadow mushroom has not been so common for me; I'd searched in vain for years to find them. Until last week, when Holly came home with a bushel of the mushrooms we call "pinks." I cooked them up using a classic Escoffier recipe, and lemme tell ya: It was worth the wait.
Pheasant, Grouse, Quail
Done right, smoked pheasant can be the finest expression of this bird at the table. Smokey, juicy and a little sweet from a maple glaze, it's a lot like those smoked turkeys you can buy for the holidays -- only with fewer leftovers. Here's how to do it.
Recipe
If you're having a quiet Thanksgiving, maybe just the two of you, you don't need a whole turkey. Instead, gently poach the turkey breast and serve it with a rich gravy made from turkey wings. And while I used wild turkey, any ole' gobbler will work.
Preservation Recipes
We're heading into Tuber Time, and one of my favorites are jerusalem artichokes, which are native to North America. Although these tubers will keep for months in the fridge, the best way to preserve them long-term is to pickle them. I've been making this recipe for years, and I am pretty proud of it.
Venison
Anyone who knows me will not be surprised at all to learn that the first thing I cooked from the yearling antelope I shot in Wyoming was the shanks. I love me some shank. Since the meat was so light and tender, I cooked the shanks "forty garlic clove" style, like the famous chicken dish.
Asian
Few cultures love to eat squirrel more than the Hmong, a group of Southeast Asian immigrants who arrived here in the US after the Vietnam War. This is a pretty standard stew loaded with fresh, vibrant ingredients: Lemongrass, ginger, chiles and lots of herbs. It's like a squirrel pho.
Featured
Something about squirrel hunting touches me deeply. Moreso than anything else, hunting squirrels in the Eastern forests takes me back to childhood, to the woods that were my home when as a boy. I miss those days of exploration, but they all came flooding back recently in one epic day in Ohio.
Sweet Things
Wintergreen ice cream. Why not? I love regular mint ice cream, and after my friend Nate and I foraged for a bunch of wintergreen berries on Cape Ann in Massachusetts a couple weeks ago, I reckoned this would be a cool way to use them... no pun intended.
Recipe
There are a million recipes for pumpkin or squash soup on the Internet, but I'd like to think mine is a little different -- thanks to bacon and creme fraiche. You stew the squash with diced bacon, then puree everything. It's made of win.
Fish
There is no freshwater fish I'd rather eat than a yellow perch, and I recently got a chance to fish for them in Lake Erie, near Cleveland. It was a blast, and to celebrate the Rust Belt city's heritage, I made a Polish-style perch chowder with kielbasa, sour cream and dill.
Featured
Sometimes a hunt is more than a hunt. Sometimes it is a window into the dark reaches of this world, and the next. I came away from my Wyoming antelope hunt with a vision of courage -- not by me or by any of my companions, but of the animals we pursued.
Pheasant, Grouse, Quail
Hanging upland game birds is a lot like dry-aging beef: It concentrates and refines flavors, tenderizes meat and generally transforms a pheasant from a rather boring chicken into a bird fit for a king. Here's how to do it safely.
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