Foraging

Cooking Blue Camas

Blue Camas, camassia quamash, has been a staple of the Northwest Indians for centuries, but few modern cooks have experimented with this edible bulb. Here are the results of my experiments.

Foraging

Blue Camas and Other Edible Bulbs

Last week I found lots of wild edible bulbs in the High Sierra, notably blue camas. But eating bulbs has twin problems: Poisonous look-alikes, and the fact that their flowers are achingly beautiful.

Foraging

Sea Beans, Salicornia, Samphire, Pickleweed

How to pick and cook salicornia, the plant of a thousand names: Saltwort, samphire, chicken feet, whatever -- no matter what you call it, this is one of the finest foraged foods around.

Venison

Mushroom Swiss Burger

Inspired by a beef-and-mushroom burger I made, this version, with venison and morel mushrooms, is even better! Venison and mushrooms are a natural combination.

Foraging

Bracken Fern: Food or Poison?

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.

Foraging

Eating Yucca Flowers

No matter where I went, from here in Sacramento all the way to South Florida, yucca plants are in bloom. There are lots of different species, but the flowers are all edible - they taste like a cross between a green bean and an artichoke leaf.

Sweet Things

Huckleberry Cake

Buttermilk huckleberry cake. Even with frozen huckleberries, it's as good as it looks. And I owe it all to Heidi Swanson, whose new vegetarian cookbook made even me take notice.

Foraging

Morel Salad

It is finally morel season here in California, and cooking my first morels of the year reminded me of how much I love this odd-looking mushroom.

Recipe

Stinging Nettle Spaetzle

I absolutely love my spaetzle maker, and have been working on flavored spaetzle all winter. This one, a stinging nettle spaetzle, I made to celebrate the coming of spring.

French

Duck Gizzards Confit

This is my favorite way to eat duck or goose gizzards. Sliced thin and tossed with a simple saute of wild mushrooms -- I mostly use chanterelles or hedgehogs -- it's a killer dish.

Foraging

Harvesting Bull Pine Nuts

The more I work with wild nuts, the more I appreciate the ones you buy in the store. Shelling wild pine nuts is not the most exciting thing I've ever done, but I'm glad I did it.