Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi
Taking a break from what has become the Summer of Salmon, this is my go-to summertime pasta sauce recipe. A mix of fresh or preserved tomatoes, lots of fresh fennel and a little bit of anise-flavored liqueur brighten up this sauce for warm days.
Salmon and Trout
This has been a memorable year for salmon fishing in California. I've caught quite a few chinooks already so far, and the first thing I cook on each one is the collar - the part behind the gills and head. Grilled like Japanese hamachi kama, it is spectacular.
Venison
Chimichurri is one of the best sauces for warm weather: It's an herby, garlicky, tangy sauce usually served with beef. Here I am using wild mountain pennyroyal and serving the chimichurri over venison.
Recipe
If there is a group that eats more crayfish than the Louisianans, it's the Scandinavians. August is all about crayfish (or crawfish or crawdads) in Sweden and Finland, and this light salad is perfect for long summer evenings.
Recipe
There is something naive and joyful about sitting on a stream bank, catching crayfish. I have vivid memories of catching crawdads as a kid, and jumped at the chance to catch them again in the Sierra Nevada.
Berries and Fruits
Hollyleaf redberry is sweet, pretty and abundant. It is also a mystery. I am confident about eating this berry now, but it took some research -- the kind of research anyone who dares eat something unknown ought to do before popping it into your mouth.
Fish
Remember the blackened redfish craze back in the 1980s? I do, and I am here to revive that old dish, only this time with catfish caught in Northern California.
Featured
Catfish swim through a murky stream of race, class and regional rivalry. No other fish in North America defines where you stand in this world quite so much as the catfish. Eating one can border on being a political act.
Charcuterie
This is one of the easiest charcuterie projects you can undertake, and it has been one of my more popular recipes. But I've learned a lot about making duck prosciutto since I first started doing it in 2007, and there is definitely a difference between good duck ham and great duck ham.
Fish
If you don't love fish and chips, you are bad American -- and an even worse Englishman. I love fish and chips so much I make them at home, and have tinkered with my beer batter and my choice of fish for years. I think I've come pretty close to perfecting it.
Recipe
A surprisingly wonderful ice cream from a surprisingly wonderful wild plant. Wild ginger grows on the forest floors of much of the United States, and, when eaten in moderation, is different - yet just as good - as the ginger you buy in the store.
Recipe
Quail are one of the best game birds for the grill, and respond well to either high heat grilling or slow-and-low barbecue. Here I barbecue them slowly, basted with a South Carolina-style mustard sauce.
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