Fucking Rascals!

Finds!

Wild garlic- ramsons, and wild mint- apple mint.

All foraging aside this is the real reason why I love it so much, the sheer beauty!

Morels!  Just when I think I have the right spots and right timing they just don't appear, then as I'm giving up and heading back to my truck I find them in just the place I wouldn't have checked.  Today I was caught off guard by a beautiful flower, which most people plant outside their house, growing smack dab in the middle of sand in a nice sunny location.  As I approached it to to get a closer look just to it's right was lone blonde morel, sun shining down growing right up from the sand.  Yesterday I found several just poking from some beautiful green foliage along a fallen tree, which species I couldn't make out, but a more likely location.  At one point I was even in a burnt out area, which they tend to love but found nothing.  Two days of mushroom hunting and found just a little over a handful but thanks to some wonderful friends with a lucky connection to a couple who doesn't eat morels I got quite the load.  There's about another week to two of these wonderful creatures and if the temperatures reach up a bit then I might have more luck in my spots.  I also had some other good finds, wild mint-from what I've researched I believe it to be apple mint and wild garlic, known as ramsons.  You just never know...  When finding large quantities of morels or other mushrooms freezing, sharing and drying is my suggestion.  And if you are one of those lucky enough to find a carpet of them I also suggest to not take more than you know you can share, freeze, dry or consume.  The earth benefits from their return to it by helping the trees and forest floor and spreading more spores for seasons to come so we can find them again.  That really goes for any foraged edible.

When Hunting For Morels...

It's hard not to only be searching for this lovely wicked creature.  Keep your eyes open.  There are ramps, nettles, fiddleheads, dandelions, pheasant back mushrooms and plenty more goodies to get your nature loving hands on.  Keep in mind not to look too soon.  Soil conditions should be well into the high fifties regardless of a nice day or two.  They are tricky little suckers never showing up it seems in the same place. Look for damaged woods where poplars, elms, and ash trees are plenty.  After this weekend when the weather conditions are well into the high sixties and seventies, nice and rainy, head down south towards St.  Louis.  You're sure to find them in the woods-Jackson and Union Counties.  If you can't go that far wait till it gets a bit closer to the end of April and head over to Putnam and Shelby Counties and if you really want to check out something fun, take a look at this event.  Enjoy the beautiful Illinois woods.

Spring Menu!

Spring menu in the works.  I've got so many ideas for this Spring I see the menu to be changing fairly often losing a dish here or there only to be replaced by something else fun and of course it will be subject to change depending on my foraging excursions.  I should have lots of wonderful items like ramps, nettles, fiddleheads, morels, chickweed, mulberries, elderberry flowers... 

Gazpacho

cucumber, hibiscus

Sunflower

goat's milk, lavender honey, home grown

Pierogi

white truffle, potato, marscarpone

Snow Crab Ball

hanging

Shrimp and Avocado 

mango noodles, other garnishes

Cannoli 

Scrambled egg, asparagus, prosciutto di Parma, yeast

Shrimp Noodles

scampi

1 Pill Makes You Larger 1 Pill Makes You Small

maitake, pecan, cocoa, chamomile

Hand-Cut Pasta

English peas, chicken liver, black truffle

Sweetbreads and Brains

pumpernickel, apples, nasturtium 

Oatmeal Dashi

hato mugi

Ice Cream Cone

bacon, Koval Whisky, black pepper

Bison Tenderloin

blood, marshmallow, berries

Gobstopper

strawberry and rhubarb pie

Mirepoix

Carrot, celery, onion, white chocolate

Snail Roe, Clear Oatmeal And Gazpacho, And Morels!

Snail eggs tastes like dirt.  So cool.  I had them about a year ago when I was staging in the kitchen at Schwa. Michael laughed and bellied over to me with his wild eyes and said, "you wanna taste a dirt alginate ball?"  Of course I did.  And that was it, snail roe.  

Anyways.  I love clarification.  I don't have a centrifuge and it seems like the cool kids do: Alinea (I think), Moto-for sure, L20-probably, Ideas in Food-yeah, Wd-50, Modern Cuisine-absolutely.  So I have to make a consomme or "dashi," a Japanese term for a certain broth, the old fashioned way-gelatin clarification.  Today I made two-a gazpacho that is fucking delicious and an oatmeal.  Whoa!

Hi sweet babies, mama loves you!

Ok so in other news.  I can't wait for morels.  I really can't.  Headed down south soon.  Just you wait.  You will love the dishes I make with these.  

To Hunt or Not To Hunt

The daffodils begin to peek through the frozen soil, suddenly robins are spotted (only to get shat upon), and for me that means morels are right around the corner.  For some people that means shootin wild turkeys.  The only thing I ever thought about wild turkey was drinking it and feeling not so good but now I'm thinking about killing them.  The only shooting I've done before is beer bottles on my grandparents farm.  I've never been so sure that I could kill an animal, however with eating them so much, and loving to be resourceful with all my foraging and the tough economic times it's starting to make more sense to me.  So this Spring I will be hunting.  Maybe when I get there I will not do it and instead search wildly for morels (cause they love those game preserves).  Or maybe I'll shoot a turkey, cry a little and behind those tears a wild madness will emerge and I'll become a cold blooded hunter.  Either way I'd like to make some pastrami/corned wild turkey leg sandwiches with cream cheese on homemade sage and brown butter bread.  I will certainly keep you posted.  I'd love a deer but my God they are so beautiful and big, not that turkeys are not beautiful in their own way... Oh well, you know what I mean.  This will be tough.