Archive for 'Denver'

A Fall for Pumpkin & Acorns Soup

Saturday, November 26th, 2011 at 8:53 pm  
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pumpkin acorns soup 350x298 A Fall for Pumpkin & Acorns Soup

Pumpkin and wild acorns soup, garnished with pumpkin seeds and a dollop of sour cream.

Okay I’ll admit it. I’m rusty—rusty at cooking, rusty at foraging, rusty at writing about stuff that interests me. I swear I ignore the writing for a week and suddenly it’s three weeks and before I know it I’ve totally forgotten that I actually enjoy writing.

The computer crash didn’t help. I lost several not-yet-published entries I was excited about—one on homemade wild sumac candies (think pink lemon drops), yet another acorn rant, and a fun-filled account of recent drama that took place around a foragers’ gathering down Denver way, wherein Gregg’s car landed in the impound just as I was making the famous Hank Shaw’s acquaintance. (This was hilarious … in retrospect.) Needless to say, I lost composure, data, and momentum. Follow with a 3-day power outage in wintry Colorado at 11,000 feet and you’ve got one cold, frustrated forager-blogger. 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

A Reflection on the Providence of Apples

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 5:07 pm  
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bag of apples 262x350 A Reflection on the Providence of Apples

One of four bags of apples we collected.

The apple was born wild in Kazakhstan, Michael Pollan explains in The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, in which he examines the relationship between four plants—tulips, apples, potatoes, and marijuana—and people, exploring how each of these plants has proliferated and evolved in the service of satisfying human desires. In the case of the apple, that desire was for sweetness. 

Apples gone wild in the U.S. have their origins first in Kazakhstan, followed much later by the famous Johnny (Chapman) Appleseed, who traveled broadly here, planting apples from seeds and with them the genetic diversity necessary for this humble fruit to adapt to life in the New World. 

One “problem” in planting apples from seeds, however, is that you essentially get wild-edible bearing trees out them (which of course does not bother me)—for the seed of one perfect apple does not a perfect apple tree produce. Instead, an unpredictable tree sprouts, one that is often too “wild” (read: producing small, blemished, and/or gnarled fruit) to make the perfect apple of a grocery store display. Among many, many seedlings, one tree might produce a good strain of apples—an event which Pollan explains to have been cause for much celebration back in the day.  Read the rest of this entry

Free Apples Need a Good Home ASAP

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 12:15 am  
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apple tree 350x262 Free Apples Need a Good Home ASAP

Green apple tree photo by Derrick Coetzee. This is not the actual apple tree.

Ruth from southeast Aurora dropped me a line via the blog two days ago offering free green apples from her apple tree, which is going wild with fruit this year. Any Colorado locals are encouraged to take her up on the offer immediately, as the apples are ripe for the picking, in fact falling off the tree at this moment. 

Contact Ruth at 720-217-6394 to schedule a pickup or get directions. 

The timing is good for Gregg and me, too, as we’ll be down Denver way this week and plan to go get some for ourselves, though I don’t think I can handle more than a couple bags full. She believes they are Granny Smiths and they’re 2 to 2.5″ in diameter—good for pies and jams, she says. They’re organic as they’ve never been sprayed.   

If you can’t use any apples yourself please pass on the word lest the fruits of nature’s bounty go to waste.

[Photo is not the actual tree; it is courtesy of Derrick Coetzee, licensed through Creative Commons.]

Southwestern Fried Yucca Flowers—Just What the Doctor Ordered?

Sunday, June 26th, 2011 at 8:32 pm  
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denver yucca2 262x350 Southwestern Fried Yucca Flowers—Just What the Doctor Ordered?

Colorado yucca flowers at 6,000 feet.

Late last summer, during a whirlwind west-coast visit, I found myself on an unlikely hike through prickly pear cacti up a Malibu mountainside in a private ranch of rented houses to a pool that was clothing-optional on Wednesdays. (Spending time with my friend Reina is always an adventure.) 

En route to the pool I tried to pick a prickly pear from atop a cactus in ill-advised bare-handed fashion, only to find that the spines, unlike those of thistle, for example, are quick to release from their fruity bearings and inject themselves into the unlucky plucker’s skin in great numbers. We’re talking 50 spines, give or take. Then, I made the situation even worse by attempting to remove them from my fingers with my teeth, thereupon transferring dozens of sharp hair-like spines from fingers to lips and tongue. 

This is not an entry about prickly pear (although I’ve had a request and one will follow!). It is simply to set the stage for a latent realization…  Read the rest of this entry

Warm and Fuzzy Mullein Celebration

Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 6:57 am  
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mullein processing station 350x262 Warm and Fuzzy Mullein Celebration

Mullein processing station.

No matter which way I turn, mullein (Verbascum thapsis) seems to insert its fuzzy leaves into my life.

First there was the requested rescue mission to Aurora (on June 18), where Jim and Nancy invited me to weed out all of their mullein. Much to my excitement, there were about 20 big, healthy rosettes—a far cry from last year’s 10,000 tiny ones. This time I gathered enough mullein that when washed and laid out to dry, it covered three cookie sheets with a small mound of leaves on each one. 

Of course, this brought to mind the need to do something with last year’s dried mullein leaves, of which I still have a medium-size box full.  Read the rest of this entry

Aurora Yucca and the Recipes I’ve Tried With It

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 8:45 am  
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yucca flowers 350x292 Aurora Yucca and the Recipes I’ve Tried With It

Delicious yucca flowers foraged from Aurora Colorado.

The yucca around Denver is in full bloom right now, such that when we went to Gregg’s parents’ house a few days ago on June 18, the hillside in the field across the street was covered with spires of the bulbous white and sometimes purplish flowers. Unfortunately, they were protected from would-be foragers by a network of wire and wooden fences, not to mention a small amount of cow traffic. 

Gregg’s parents live in a 55-and-over “active adult community” in Aurora. Folks are always out and about—walking, running, swimming, playing tennis and golf. But I figured if we got up early in the morning and headed out there we might avoid a few looks as we scaled a fence I’d scoped out, one that got us to a small 10×20-yard patch of yucca that wasn’t encircled by the second, interior, cow-protecting fence. 

The plan worked and we set to harvesting a few yucca flowers from each plant, checking for bugs first and snipping them into our bags while taking care not to get poked by the sharp leaves. In the midst of our foraging, however, an over-55 woman drove up to a town-home on the hillside nearby and demanded to know what we were doing.  Read the rest of this entry

Reconciling Docks

Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 12:00 pm  
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Breckenridge dock mature 261x350 Reconciling Docks

Mature dock of a large-leafed variety.

The genus Rumex is giving me a headache. Damn docks! Why are there so many of you? According to Wikipedia, there are about 200 plants in the genus Rumex—which I guess explains why I’ve been having so much trouble identifying them correctly!

Not to get to deep in the muddle that docks made my brain into, but yesterday I unpublished my two dock entries (one at etmarciniec.com and one here at Wild Food Girl) after a reading of Thayer (2010) followed by more online research revealed some amount of confusion on my part over which docks I was eating and by what common and scientific names they are called.

Below is an attempt to clarify:

The Docks I Eat, See, and Dream About

Over the last two years I have been eating two different varieties of dock in and around Park County, Colorado. One has large, wide leaves and grows in moist places. After a number of unsuccessful culinary experiments where I generally erred by collecting leaves that were much too mature to be palatable, this spring I’ve found (per Thayer’s recommendation) that collecting the young leaves prior to or during their slimy unfurling yields much better food. So far I’ve prepared them by chopping the leaves and petioles (leaf stalks) into thin horizontal slices and then sautéing them, with decent results. Read the rest of this entry

Whole Spring Dandelions Delight

Thursday, May 12th, 2011 at 10:31 am  
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dandelion shoot tangle 350x332 Whole Spring Dandelions Delight

A whole spring dandelion dug from the Denver dirt.

Yesterday another foot of snow fell at the house, which lies at 11,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies. So much for the few hints of green that were beginning to poke out of the dirt. Fortunately, Gregg and I scored some small spring dandelions last weekend at his parents’ house, which lies much lower at 6,100 feet in Aurora, on the outskirts of Denver.   

Weeding Dandelions with Love  

Gregg’s step-dad Jim was kind enough to let me weed dandelions from the part of the back yard where he doesn’t spray poison due to its proximity to the fish pond. We have a symbiotic relationship in that way—he needs edible weeds removed from his carefully tended landscape, and I want to eat them.   

Have you ever weeded dandelions out of a lawn by hand? It’s not so bad if the soil is soft. Between the soft soil and the long metal hand weeding tool Jim supplied me, it was simply a matter of carefully extracting the dandelions—taproots, leaf stalks, leaves, buds, and all.  Read the rest of this entry

Dandelion Spinach Salad with Red Cabbage and Clover Petals

Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 5:47 am  
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dandelion clover spinach salad 350x262 Dandelion Spinach Salad with Red Cabbage and Clover Petals

Dandelion spinach salad with red clover petals and red cabbage, delicious!

Ok, I can’t stop myself—I must boast about yet another rousing success with these delicious fall dandelions I keep finding up on the mountainside. Whereas I served the last batch finely chopped in a yummy marinated salad, I served these latest dandelion greens chopped coarsely and fresh-tossed with baby spinach, red cabbage, red clovers, and a delicious soy-based homemade dressing. Gregg was very impressed.  

Without further ado, then, here is the recipe: 

Salad Ingredients:

  • Baby spinach greens
  • Dandelion greens and leaf stems, coarsely chopped
  • Red cabbage, coarsely chopped
  • Red clover flowers, finely chopped

Read the rest of this entry

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