Charcuterie
How to Make Guanciale
Guanciale is like bacon or pancetta, only better: It's made from the jowl of a hog, not its belly. And, like most charcuterie, what kind of hog you get your jowls from makes all the difference.
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.
Appetizers and Snacks
Oyster! Oyster! Oyster!
Sometimes I can't do justice to my crazy ideas on the first go-round. Sometimes I need to fail a couple times before I nail the dish. I am happy to say I've nailed "Oyster, Oyster, Oyster."
Recipe
Venison Chili
Venison chili. What's not to love? Everyone has his own version, and I'm no exception. I'll wager you've never seen a chile recipe quite like this one: It's taken me many years to perfect it.
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
Corned Gizzards and Cabbage
I know, this should have been done in March. But trust me, this dish is worth the wait. It is easily the best offal dish I've ever made. I used to like gizzards. Now I love them!
Spanish
Kale Soup with Linguica
A hearty stew with homemade linguica, white beans and real Portuguese cabbage inspired by the caldo verde eaten in the Azores.
Charcuterie
Portuguese Linguica Sausages
I live in California's Central Valley, home to one of the nation's largest Portuguese-American communities. Linguica is their national sausage, and I thought it high time I made some.
Recipe
Sharptail Grouse, Prairie Style
Sharptail grouse is strong-tasting, but I love it, especially when paired with flavors from the prairie where it lives: Wheat, sunflower seeds, wild onion and a rose hip glaze.
