Sous Vide Venison and Warm Kamut Salad

This venison is ridiculously good, but the salad? Five stars, would visit again. Don’t look now, but Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Practice the gentle art of seduction by staying in to cook for that special someone (or #treatyoself) with this sexy plate: …

Cassoulet

Toulouse-style cassoulet: Dear lord, what an undertaking. Even if I *hadn’t* accidentally unearthed a whole pig’s head to add to my weekend workload, cassoulet is a fucking Project. I simplified it somewhat to spare myself the trauma: making what is basically French tare saves a …

Fire and Mushrooms

I wrote about fire ecology and mushroom-hunting for Fish & Game Quarterly. I’ve been kind of worried that the piece comes off a bit glib, since the rains have not yet begun in California and real danger yet looms, but my intent was for encouragement …

Wild Mushroom Rarebit

One of my Facebook friends asked (in a tone I didn’t care for) “Why do folk insist on calling it ‘rarebit?’ It’s ‘rabbit.’ Mock rabbit, pointing out that the Welsh couldn’t be expected to have actual rabbit. Tons of cultural history in the word. ‘Rarebit’ …

Pelmeni with Chanterelles and Salicornia

Store-bought pelmeni from the Russian market make a fast phone-in dinner, but serving them en brodo with wild things makes it special. Beef pelmeni in a reduction of beef/rabbit/duck stock (deglazed the pan first with my homemade Doug-fir eau de vie), with Misty Mountain chanterelles …

Staycation

I was craving a teriyaki Trader Vic's-style thing so I grilled up a Nicky Farms wild boar patty, yakionigiri (grilled rice balls), fresh pineapple and bell peppers. The wild boar is really nice — it's leaner and more flavorful than farm pork. It goes well …

Nettle-Mushroom Pie with Pine Nuts

All this cold rain has the nettles taking their sweet time, but in my spot, they’re up a little. They’re up enough, anyway, about three nodes or so, and I snip off the top two and slip them in my bag. Zephyr whines from his …

Foodbuzz 24×24: Yes We Can – Food Preservation for the Modern Palate

Now that summer is winding toward its long-lit end, our minds shift toward the harvest. Anyone with a patch of dirt is likely up to their ears in a plenitude of homegrown produce, and this overabundance can daunt the timid. What do you do with …

Elk Chili

I have the good fortune of having been born into a family of prolific hunters (read: unemployed men with guns).  My dad uses this as currency, bartering venison for visits with his grandson. He can never simply tell me he wants to see Zephyr. Instead, …

Living off the fat of the land

I guess it’s fairly obvious that I’ve got a lot on my plate these days, so to speak, and my writing has taken a back seat to more important ventures. I do still cook, once in awhile (last week produced a kabocha and eggplant mulligatawny …