Huckleberry Happiness

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:50:00 -0700

Wild huckleberries picked near Snoqualmie Pass.

Is there anything better than playing hooky on a Thursday to forage wild huckleberries in the mountains? Okay, maybe a sunny day foraging. But cold fingers and damp socks aside, hats off to foodie Becky for sharing her secret Snoqualmie Pass berry grounds. Even better, the crew provided great wines, dill-grilled prawns, pumpkin spice bread, Tom Douglas’ Tuscan bread salad, line-caught home-smoked coho salmon spread, lemon orzo, and vanilla bean crème anglaise (with two ice cream machines whirling away). Plus an assortment of children to run and scream in the vicinity to keep the bears away.

Want the inside scoop on the berry patch location? Becky has agreed to divulge the GPS coordinates, but only through a feuding network of centuries-old secret societies. Your clues: One, huckleberries symbolize the feminine (plant fertility). Two, remember the mathematical number that signifies roundness (think huckleberry pie, wink, wink). And three: look for an unscraped goat-skin parchment in Venice. Good luck!

Morels and Giants and Bears, Oh My(celium)!

Mon, 18 May 2009 21:13:00 -0700

Having just (happily) blown a wad on $30/pound morel mushrooms this weekend, imagine my envy when Crunchy Chicken sends me this link to forager Langdon Cook’s blog Fat Of The Land showing off big, beautiful bowls of morel mushrooms, with a bonus embedded YouTube video of the author snapping them up in a way-better-than-Easter-egg hunt. Somehow his soundtrack captured only the crunch of fallen leaves, and no excited, rapid breathing, as I would have done.

With the small supply of dearly purchased mushrooms in my kitchen, I made a quick morel butter (from James Peterson’s Fish & Shellfish): Saute 1/4 pound sliced fresh morels in a tablespoon of unsalted butter until dry. Salt and pepper to taste, and food process, adding a 1/4 pound butter until mixed. Super simple, and refrigerates for weeks, or freezes for months. We’ve been stretching our mushroomy investment by melting small dollops on grilled halibut, grass-fed hanger steak, and roast Cornish-Cross chicken. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Oh, and I nearly died when I read Cook’s monster puffball post, complete with pictures of his nearly ten-pound western giant. Not sure what shocked me more: its size, or the beast’s take-me-to-your-leader-style landing—on a slope overlooking MLK Jr. Blvd. in Seattle.

No wonder the bears are moving to Seattle.

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Huckleberry Happiness

Morels and Giants and Bears, Oh My(celium)!