Chicago Forest Preserve

Chicago Forest Preserve

Well I can't claim to know everything about food but I do know how to find food.  If the world ends in 2012 or if there is just a shift in consciousness or if a huge bomb goes off and only leaves some of us behind, like in the book, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, I think you'd want me on your side.  I won't eat you or your animals (i.e. cat, dog, hamster), so that's a start.  But I will be able to feed you from what is left assuming there is some vegetation.  Today I went the Chicago Forest Preserve for dinner.  Sometimes I get sick of the same old conventional shopping.  So tonight for dinner I'm highlighting dandelion greens.  I'll mix them with heirloom tomatoes, grapeseed oil, a dash of sherry vinegar, salt and cracked pepper.  I have my own lovely pepper combo I use, it's green, red, black and thai long peppercorns.  Yum.  So that will be the starter.  At the last farmers' market I bought pasta from Specialty Pasta, I like him.  Sweet potato gnocchi.  I'll heat that with garlic, dandelion greens, butter and parmesan cheese.
While the dandelion greens will do, I have to be honest, my favorite thing to find in the woods is mushrooms.  Today wasn't the day.  While I found decent conditions, some fairly old Oaks, beautiful minty green moss, I just didn't find any mushrooms.  Now I did find a lot of deer tracks and had I been a deer hunter today would have been my lucky day, two came within twenty feet of me and checked me out.  I think they might have gotten to the mushrooms first.  Deer will do that, they know what to eat and they love maitake mushrooms in the Fall and morels in the Spring.
Even if you are not interested in finding your food in the woods, the Chicago Forest Preserves are gorgeous and I felt proud of our City today, unlike the days when I get parking tickets.  There is calm and serenity there.