If you’ve ever eaten in a Greek diner, you may have eaten spanikopita, a traditional spinach pie made with flakey phyllo dough. But unless you have a yia yia (Greek grandmother) you may not have tasted hortopita: wild greens pie. Wild edibles are part of everyday life in Greece, in fact, you’ll often find wild edibles for sale at village markets. Hortopita…
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Heading to Wisconsin: The Midwest Wild Harvest Festival
Tomorrow morning at 4:30 a.m. I head to ABQ and the airport…next stop Madison, WI. The Midwest Wild Harvest Festival is in Prairie du Chien this weekend, and I look forward to it every year: three days with a great group of curious, cooperative foragers. This year I’ll be teaching classes on cooking with wild herbs and spices, and making…
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Concord Grape Mousse Recipe
This Concord grape mousse is an excellent late-summer, early-fall dessert, capturing the full, rich flavor of ripe grapes in a light and fluffy mousse. And while it’s made with gelatin, I hesitate to call it jello, because when most of us hear the word jello, we remember bright green, jiggling molds filled with mandarin orange slices. This is definitely not…
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Blanching and Freezing: Why It’s Important
If you forage for wild greens, you probably already know how to blanch and freeze. It’s the best way to preserve your leafy harvest, maintaining both the color and nutrition of the plants you’ve picked. If you’re just starting out, this is a preservation technique you’ll use time and time again. And thanks to Harold McGee and his fantastic book…
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The Best Way to Preserve Your Mushroom Harvest
They don’t call it mushroom hunting for nothing. While mushrooms may be perennial, they are never predictable. That’s part of what makes it so darned exciting. When you hit the mushroom jackpot, you could easily go home with 30 pounds of choice fungi, in which case you better know how to preserve your mushroom harvest! Mushrooms are highly perishable, and…
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