Archive for 'currants'

Wild Black Currant Brandy Voted Best in House

Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 5:34 am  
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wild black currants fairplay co 350x262 Wild Black Currant Brandy Voted Best in House

Rain-kissed wild black currant goodness.

It’s wild booze month at Hunger & Thirst and again I have Butterpoweredbike to thank for motivating me to the computer to write something. That—and for getting me into the liquor cabinet for a night of distraction from my many winter obligations.

Fortunately, Gregg and I were good little alcohol squirrels over the warmer months, storing wild foraged ingredients in bottles of booze now and again. One batch of our prized bathtub gin—made from vodka flavored with juniper “berries” and wild angelica—remains, but as of the other night there were also a few experiments yet to be tried: wild grape vodka, wild black currant vodka, and wild black currant brandy among them. Read the rest of this entry

There’s No Foraging Like Snow Foraging

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 9:53 am  
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colorado rockies october 2011 262x350 There’s No Foraging Like Snow Foraging

October snow hovers in the high country.

It’s mid October and it just keeps snowing here in the high country at 11,000 feet in Colorado Rockies. You’d think foraging season were over, but it’s not. 

Two days ago I awoke to a steady snow and found myself unable to focus on work. By noon it stopped but the wind kicked up; the way it whipped around the house inspired Gregg to curl up by the fire and swear he’d stay inside all day. I felt exactly the opposite, however: I needed to go outside.

It’s hunting season so the hand-me-down pink bell bottom cords and orange puffy vest were in order. It was hat and gloves weather too with all that wind. 

The mining road was vacant and the snow plentiful. I reveled in getting fresh tracks as I hiked through 3”- 4” deep swaths of pow. At a switchback I clambered over the fallen tree trunk that obscures the footpath to the secret meadow, which I descended brushing snow off the low bushes as I went. 

There were many non-producing low juniper shrubs en route but eventually I found the one I was looking for, which I’d spied a few days prior. It is the most fruitful creeping juniper shrub I’ve ever found, and despite the snow it was still laden with plump, blue berries.  Read the rest of this entry

The Current Currant Season is Kicking

Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 8:09 am  
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currant spiny 350x262 The Current Currant Season is Kicking

Juicy Ribes berries dangling from spiny branches, beware! Photo by Gregg Davis.

The currants and gooseberries were not yet ripe here at 11,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies when I published my August Wild Edible Notebook, which is devoted to berries—strawberries and huckleberries, specifically—but now they are, and oh what a currant season the current season is!

I had an inkling of the potential the other day when we visited the Como Roundhouse during Railroad Days and Deb was kind enough to let Gregg and I and Kor from Holland out back to see the ruins of the housing tenements, where I found big bushes laden with ripe and hairy but not altogether tasty red currants. Yesterday, however, when we pulled into the parking lot of the Limber Grove Trail, berries were the first thing I saw.

I couldn’t believe the size of those purple berries. There were so many of them—and the biggest I’ve ever seen! So eager was I to begin collecting that I didn’t realize I’d positioned myself in a big anthill until ants were swarming up my leg. After hopping around maniacally to shake them off, however, I found better footing and returned to my collecting.

The bushes were rife with big, painful spines, complicating picking. When I absentmindedly tried raking the bush with my fingers like I do with huckleberries, I wound up cutting a painful, horizontal paper-cut-like slice into a purple-red stained finger.   Read the rest of this entry

Tale of a Golden Foraging Opportunity

Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 10:05 pm  
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golden colorado hillside 254x350 Tale of a Golden Foraging Opportunity

Forager on a Golden hillside. Photo by Gregg Davis.

On our way home from Denver last Friday, Gregg and I made a detour up Golden Gate Canyon Road to check out a 93-acre ranch that Marilyn, who I met when she commented on a post, invited us to forage. (Actually, truth be told, I invited myself and she was generous enough to accept.) The canyon is breathtaking and so was her land, 93 acres of very steep hillside accessed by a potentially gnarly dirt road and then slowly through the cattle gate to where her family’s oasis is nestled.

She gave us a quick tour of the property, pointing out all the wild edible plants (even though I though that was my job), and then directed us up the hill. “Make a good hike of it,” she said, sending us on our way. 

Well, a “good hike” it certainly was—straight up, up, up, between the rocks, through the scrub, baking in the hot sun—and this after just completing three hours of skate camp in Highlands Ranch, also in the hot sun. So, for the first half of the hike (read: the up part), I was sweating profusely and frustrated with myself for my lack of excitement about the adventure, as I’d looked forward to it the entire week prior. It was all I could do to collect a few edibles while Gregg took photos. “We’ll come back when we’re less tired,” I said, trying to justify my attitude.  

But then, near the top of the hill in a ditch right before the well, something wonderful happened that snapped me right out of it: Gregg stuck his hand right into a patch of stinging nettles!  Read the rest of this entry

Fall Foraging in the Colorado High Country

Sunday, September 26th, 2010 at 8:05 am  
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gooseberry currant co 260x350 Fall Foraging in the Colorado High Country

Tart purple gooseberry on a spiny bush.

We had a great hike on Pennsylvania Mountain near our house in the Colorado high country yesterday afternoon. My intention was just to go for a short jaunt because we both have non-wild-edible-plants-related work to get done. So we headed up to one of our usual spots—an old mining road that starts where the county road ends. I brought pint containers just in case we found some late-fruiting currants—which we did, but not until the hike’s dénouement, like some sort of juicy pot of red gold at the end of the rainbow, because it was definitely a rainbow of a hike.

Starting out I was a little on edge because it occurred to me we should have worn orange on account of hunting season, but then we found a few currants hanging off bushes in the valley shade and my mood improved, even though we only found enough to whet our appetites for more.  Read the rest of this entry

Jellies and Jams, My Currant Obsession

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 5:58 am  
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wild black currants 350x262 Jellies and Jams, My Currant Obsession

Wild black currants with distinctive Ribes leaves.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I absolutely love making jellies and jams!  

Mind you, this is a complete about-face from how I felt about them yesterday, especially after Gregg read aloud the brochure that came inside the box of MCP pectin and it said we had to “Measure ingredients exactly” because “ALTERING RECIPES or INGREDIENTS could cause a set failure” (the caps are MCP’s emphasis) while I was failing to get my first-ever jam to set. I felt like Julie Powell about to throw a fit over a Julia Child recipe gone wrong. What do you mean I have to measure the ingredients exactly? I near wailed as one nervous boyfriend tried his best to disappear into the background.

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