After burning god knows how many gallons of gas checking our super-secret hen-of-the-wood spot once or twice a week for most of the summer and all of the fall, we finally hit pay dirt. Not just one, but two big, young, firm mushrooms. Cleaned and trimmed, our haul was well over two pounds. They’re sauteeing as [...]
I spent all yesterday afternoon reenacting a scene from the Bible. It wasn’t the usual Sunday school choice, like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai, or Abraham not sacrificing Isaac, or Jacob tricking his father into giving him the blessing meant for his older, hairier brother. (I understand there are also compelling scenes in the [...]
We all have one. It’s that elusive special something that makes your chili, or strawberry preserves, or banana bread, so very popular. And you never tell, but not because you’re afraid that everyone you know will be able to replicate your chili, or strawberry preserves, or banana bread and you won’t have any friends. It’s [...]
I wasn’t the kind of kid who didn’t like to share, although my mother’s endorsement of my childhood open-handedness leaves something to be desired. “You weren’t worse than other children,” she told me. As an adult, though, I find that I sometimes don’t want to share at all. While I generally don’t mind sharing with [...]
Yesterday I burned the blueberry compote. I’d harvested all I could reach of our high-bush blueberries, which amounted to a meager half-cup. I didn’t have enough for compote, so I thought about going after the ones I couldn’t reach, but I decided that another handful of mediocre blueberries wasn’t worth risking life and limb. Instead, [...]
My husband is a commodity trader and spent most of his career on the exchange floor, trading coffee and crude oil. When you trade in a pit, you have to be aware of everything that’s going on in a ring that’s about fifty feet in diameter and contains some 300 traders. Who knew that commodity [...]
Kevin and I went clamming this morning, accompanied by our friend Katie, who is visiting from New York. It was a very satisfying experience. Until today, I thought I was the only person on the planet who gets a thrill out of raking clams up out of the seabed, but now I know there’s at [...]
I just need more. We have highbush and lowbush blueberries, a blueberry look-alike that I can’t identify, and a berry that grows on creeping, strawberry-like ground cover, that I also can’t identify. The problem — besides the fact that I can only establish the ediblity of the ones I can’t identify by eating them – [...]
Starving has required me to experiment a lot, and I’ve had varying degrees of success. Sea salt was a smash hit, ice fishing was just okay, jury’s out on dandelion wine. Very few of my experiments, though, have been abject failures; my attempt at harvesting wild yeast (no link there!) was probably the biggest flop [...]
We’ve been had. We’re in the process of making dandelion wine, using Euell Gibbons’ recipe. It’s a simple procedure: 1. Pour one gallon of boiling water over one gallon of dandelion flowers. Steep for three days. 2. Strain out the flowers, and add a small piece of chopped ginger, the zest and juice of three [...]
Tamar Haspel has been writing about food and health for over a decade. She recently moved from Manhattan to Cape Cod. She’s adjusting well. [Read More …]
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