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Hank Shaw duck hunting.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

I’ve been in a funk lately, a malaise. For weeks I’d attributed it to the exhaustion of being on a book tour for months on end. I knew that focusing so hard on making Duck, Duck, Goose as successful as I could would naturally sap my strength to cook, write and to make Hunter Angler Gardener Cook as good a website as I can possibly make it.

But I’ve been home more than a week now, sitting quietly, and I know there is something else at work. The realization began to creep over me as I was catching up on other websites and reading colleagues’ cookbooks. It solidified when I thought of all the amazing food I’d eaten at my book dinners over the course of those four months. Clear-eyed and cold, I sit here with the stark realization that I am simply not that good.

Maybe it’s just age talking. As we grow older all of us begin to test the limits of our abilities. Our world narrows. The stars we shot for so long ago seem even farther away. It used to be that I could see a chef on TV perform some act of culinary prestidigitation and glibly comment that I could do that, given some time. Now, having seen in person real chefs perform real feats of magic in the kitchen, I am no longer so sure.

In Austin, I had all the time in the world to think about a dish to serve at the finale of my book tour, and all the time and equipment I needed to cook it. I made a German giblet soup called ganseklein, served it with acorn spaetzle, and drizzled a little Austrian pumpkinseed oil over each plate at service. It was a lovely dish. But I’d be a braggart and a liar if I did not say that my friend Jesse Griffiths, who made a German duck kasekrainer sausage with sprouted wheat, pickled radish and homemade mustard, did not blow my dish from the water.

Even in my wheelhouse I was bested. And this was not the only time it has happened. I am not being overly prideful here. I’m not hurt that professional chefs have cooked better duck dishes than I have: I am ashamed of myself for lacking the imagination and ability to either conceive of or execute some of their dishes. In their collective shadow, I’ve been proven to be a competent cook, but nothing more. My knives should be sharper. I need to become a more skilled baker. I ought to be better at sous vide. At desserts. At plating food. At the simple act of cooking beans.

The raw fact is that the exigencies of running this website pull me in so many competing directions I find that I have become the proverbial jack of all trades and master of none. I am a good forager but I know better. I am only an average hunter, and a somewhat better-than-average angler. I can break down animals and fish with the best of them, but even in this realm I know there is a lifetime’s worth of knowledge I have yet to master. Same goes for the act of roasting birds, or searing fish or making ice cream.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

It is also a fact that I must earn my living from this website. To do that, I know that most people come here looking for recipes for things like venison chili or roast pheasant or salmon chowder. This is the sort of recipe that quite literally pays the bills, and I honestly enjoy making and eating them. But for every such classic I post on this site, I feel an equal need to create original dishes like Oyster! Oyster! Oyster! or The White Sturgeon or Dessert from the Mountain. In many ways this push-pull of the everyday and the esoteric are what make HAGC as fun as it is to create — and I hope to read.

Several years ago I wrote an essay called A Restless Craftsman. In essence the piece was about me trying to elevate the craft of cooking to an art. I am over that now. Art has become, at least for me, something unattainable in food — fancy plating and odd ingredients do not art make. Art moves the mind, sends it to higher places. Food simply cannot do that. Food can entertain, amuse, divert and even alarm. But can food spark someone to sit back and contemplate greater human truths? I doubt it.

Writing, however, can. A reporter asked me recently what, of all the skills I possess, do I consider that I am best at? Writing was the easy answer. I’ve written for publication virtually every week for 22 years. If there is any real art in anything I’ve ever done with this odd, meandering life of mine, it lies within the written word. Yet even in this realm I feel flat.

Which is why I am writing you this letter, dear readers.

I am still a restless craftsman. Only now I am hoping to renew and restore my love of the crafts I have chosen to pursue: Hunting, foraging, angling. Butchering, cooking and yes, writing. I spent almost the entirety of last year as a public person. I drove nearly 30,000 miles to and from events, traveled to 45 states, did scores of media interviews and talked with literally thousands of people. By the end I felt like a caricature of myself, and I began to hate the sound of my own voice. I will not do this in 2014.

I have found my limits, and they are humbling. Depressing, even. But they are only my limits today. Today I will learn something new, in the field, on the water, in the kitchen or at my keyboard. Today I will become better than I was yesterday. And tomorrow I will get up and do it again.

This is my vow to you. I hope you stay with me for the journey.

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French Garlic Chicken

Classic French 40 clove garlic chicken, made with pheasant. This recipe features thighs, and works with chicken, pheasant, rabbit or partridge.

Corned Beef Casserole

Corned beef or venison casserole is a great use for leftovers. Add noodles, cabbage, peas, cheese and breadcrumbs and it’s a winner.

Chacales

Chacales are roasted, dried and cracked corn typically cooked in soups. Also called chichales or chuales, it makes a great meatless soup for Lent.

About Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet’s largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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117 Comments

  1. Stick to it Hank!

    I love cooking and feel inspired by your write ups. To me cooking a dish so good that all of my kids and wife – sometimes extended family takes seconds or even thirds is a huge reward. It also honors the wild game that I hunted and killed. Your recipies and the community around it is amazing and you are an inspiration to many

  2. I don’t hunt, neither does my husband, and I’m completely boring in how I cook. But I love your website because I learn so much from it. Just browsing through is an education. I keep coming back because you have a real talent for writing. So thank you for all your work maintaining the high quality of this site.

  3. Hank, hang in there bud.

    I have always loved your ability to introduce new concepts to a larger audience, and think it is probably you true creative gift. You make things attainable and fun. I don’t have half your site (and a good number of your posts over at Elise’s Simply Recipes) bookmarked because of theoretical creativity, I have them marked because they have pushed my own skills, thoughts, and had fantastic moments that have enriched my life.

    And don’t get bogged down in the competition cooking. When was the last time somebody watched iron chef and thought “I think I’ll make that on Friday”?

    P.s. I own both Afield by Jesse Griffiths and Duck, Duck, Goose by you. I think yours is more original.

  4. Hank,

    It is humbling when you come to the realization that it as a big world full of talented people. I suffered my own realization many years ago as a young college athlete who was a hotshot at the state level and a bust at the college level. I just wasnt big enough, fast enough, or strong enough. However, I parlayed that education into a tremendously successful career.

    Like many here I am an avid Hank Shaw fan and I love your blog and your books. Your recipes are reachable for a amateur like me. Thats compelling.

    You suffer from “positive discontent” where you know youre good, but you arent satisfied. Thats a common trait of succesful people of which you are. Your worldview when it comes to cooking is somewhat small as you have very specific circles you run in, but there are only a small percentage of people walking the earth that can do what you do. Embrace that. Youll break through that ceiling and accomplish things you havent thought possible yet…

    Im looking forward to that outcome…

  5. I think, Mr. Shaw, that you might be the Cole Porter of back-to-the-land food-and-hunting bloggers. Perhaps you can’t cook as well as you’d like, and certainly not as well as the people who interpret your work. But if it wasn’t for your work in the first place then there’d be nothing to interpret, and long after the ephemeral interpretation it’ll still be your ideas people reach for.

    You’re also suffering from ego-exhaustion, it sounds like: you’re at the point where you’ve overtaxed your will, over-exercised your ego, and pushed outside your already quite expansive comfort zone. You’re trying and doing things that in many cases you don’t know how to do, which is why we’re all here reading, but you get to a point where you don’t have the blood sugar left. (I’ve tried and somewhat successfully started hunting this past fall because of your blog, after a 2-decade-plus layoff, and its just hard work to put yourself into situations that are really radically unfamiliar. I’m also training for a marathon, fighting off zombies in my engineering job, writing musics, being a husband and father, and a number of other things that leave me, at the end of a month, wanting to do nothing more than something I already know how to do.)

    So take a break from the new. Revisit some of the old. Not every week needs to be out on the edge of your experience.

    And remember: Cole Porter couldn’t sing worth a damn.

  6. Hank, I hear you – this is something I’ve been struggling with myself, as I contemplate a new chapter in my life — one that will bring more wild chanterelles and steelhead, but leave behind maple sugaring and blueberries. For me, it’s a question of focusing on strengths and your natural talents. There will always be someone better at a task than you, but I hope you don’t see that as a sign of weakness in yourself, but rather recognize the outstanding talents in the people in your life and your own outstanding talents. It’s a beautiful thing to be surrounded by people who strive to do things well and take pride in their work. I hope you feel supported and encouraged by the people like me who find immense value and inspiration in the words, photos and recipes you share with the wide world.

  7. “…But can food spark someone to sit back and contemplate greater human truths? I doubt it.”
    I am inclined to strongly disagree with this statement. As a new hunter myself, eating wild game has put me in touch with perhaps one of the greatest human truths; We are predators, we are part of this food chain and we have a place in it that many of us have long abandoned.
    Some wild game can taste somewhat strong or funky if prepared improperly. Your website has taught me as much about honoring the animals I harvest as I have learned about hunting them. Your recipes elevate my eating wild game to truly enjoying (rather than enduring) eating them. That’s the truth!

  8. I just had to stop by and say HORSE MANURE. If I could only dine upon wild fare for my meals, I would refuse everything not served from the kitchen of — and prepared by — a one Hank Shaw. That’s a fact, Jack.

  9. I consider myself the best cook of the guys I hunt with, maybe that’s not saying much. I am constantly trying to show them better ways to use the deer, ducks, geese, fish and other game we hunt. My feeling is that these are gifts and that we should do the best we can to turn these into great tablefare. My friends tell me I am a great chef… And I always tell them no, I am not a chef. I’m just a guy that has learned how to cook a few thinks pretty good. Hank, you have inspired me and delighted me with so many great ideas on what to do with the bounty of wild game I acquire. I thank you and my table guests thank you.

    Remember… Most chefs don’t hunt, most hunters are not great cooks, most people don’t forage, garden and preserve, many of us don’t write very well… Your gift to us is vast and invaluable. I think there are few of us out there that measure up to your skills as a Hunter, Angler, Gardner.

  10. I found your site after a contemplating walk in what wilds still remain around my home.I may have had some of the same thoughts you had many years ago as you started journeying around and got hungry, thinking, can I eat that? Of course, it goes beyond that simple question and you have turned a question into a quest. Like a true voyageur you travel and experience but the difference is you communicate those adventures to me so that I can live more fully and this is your art. Wild food and your love of nature are regularly captured in your ‘recipes’ and this is what I find sustenance in. Perhaps you need to immerse once again in the adventure but please come back and tell us about it. Feed your soul and then you can create soul food.

  11. We ALL have our limitations, it is called being human, being able to identify and then defying those limitations in our own little way is what creates strength and success. Don’t forget, success isn’t measured in dollars but merely in what makes you smile at the end of your day 🙂 If both co-exist then you are laughing!!!

  12. I would like to be able to do even 10% what you were writing about. Someday I will. Feel lucky that you can do something you like to do, and make a living at it to boot. Limitations are fine. Regrets aren’t.

  13. You know, in the past year since I started doing most of my cooking from recipes, I’ve cooked from a lot of cookbooks, blogs, and so on. I’ve discovered that I love the glimpse into somebody else’s way of thinking about food that a recipe provides. Still, sometimes a recipe just doesn’t come out even though I’m sure I did what it said I should; other times, I’m sure I’ve done it correctly, but it’s just not to my taste.

    I cook from your blog more than any other source, because your recipes are the ones that come out right *and* satisfy me, while still being something I would never have come up with myself. Your recipes are the ones I make a full pot of, and then find myself wanting to cook again the next week. I’ll cook pretty much any recipe you post/publish if I can get the ingredients, because the results never disappoint me.

    I suspect some of this is that you’re a fellow Californian forager, and therefore I can actually make your recipes with the right ingredients. it’s also the way you write the recipes. You provide a lot of detail, and none of it is extraneous. The result is that I trust your recipes – not just to be amazing if I make them properly, but to provide a reliable guide that I can follow.

    At the risk of sounding like a children’s TV show, the thing you do a better job at than anyone else is being you. Obviously, it’d be awful and wrong of me to tell you that you’d be wasting your time trying to become even more awesome, but I want to express that I’m personally grateful for everything that you’ve shared with us so far, because your posts and recipes have absolutely made my week on numerous occasions.

    I regret to admit that a lot of the time, when a blogger I follow publishes a book, I end up not following their blog regularly any more. In all the (entirely understandable) fuss about the book, signings, and events, the stuff I originally followed the blog for gets lost in the noise. You’ve managed to avoid that through not one but two books.

    Thank you so much for everything you’ve given your followers so far. I wish you the best of luck on your continued adventures, and I, at least, will follow them avidly.

  14. Hank—judging from the 101 responses so far, you can add “inspiring others” to your areas of expertise. In my case, you inspire me to write better stuff, and to reconsider those iron-clad game bird legs. Thank you.

  15. Hang in there Hank! I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for the last 1 1/2 years as we had to move for my wife’s residency assignment. I’ve found cooking relieves some of my cabin fever, and your website is one of the most inspiring parts of my culinary journey. I don’t get to hunt and fish quite as much as I’d like, and still have to *gasp* buy much of our meat from the store, but I’ve been having a great time branching out and trying your recipes. Your guest appearance on Meat Eater was great, you and Steve Rinella are two people I’d be most stoked to share a hunt with! Keep up the good work!

    -Eddie

  16. Sorry to clog things up, but I wanted to revisit this post with a further comment, because I certainly understand the sentiment.

    My primary thought is that while “Jack of All Trades” may be correct as you have framed it, you certainly lose a lot of important detail about you with that description.

    In each your areas of expertise:
    cooking
    hunting
    fishing
    foraging
    kitchen gardening
    meat curing
    vegetable curing/canning
    and writing

    it is not a stretch to estimate that you know more than 98-99% of all people in the country.

    You interact comfortably with *experts* in each of these fields.

    p = (.98)^8

    Hank, you are a rare Jack…