Legions of soft, plump, frost-kissed rosehips hang heavy upon their slender, prickly stems. Many are perfectly ripe, slipping off the ends of their branches with a soft, orange gush, leaving a sticky paste to be licked off the fingers. First I made rosehip sauce by cooking the … [Read more...]
Fruiting forward
We went for wild plums in the cold, misty morning, gathering them with fingers freezing and lethargic, my feet squishing in icy, wet boots. It was worth enduring the thorny thicket, the musky scent of catnip tall around us, to come home with 20 lbs or so of plums, without making … [Read more...]
Rosehip & wild seed granola bars
For two years I bugged my friend for her grandmother’s granola bar recipe. “Erica! I finally found my recipe!” she emailed one day, and that was two years ago. So last night, approximately four years after the idea’s inception, my plans finally came to fruition when I made these … [Read more...]
European highbush cranberry glaze
Call me a “bitter-plant apologist,” but I’m pretty pleased with myself for this, my first foray into cooking with Viburnum opulus, the highbush cranberry that is the escaped ornamental cousin of the much-celebrated native species. Says Sam Thayer in The Forager’s Harvest … [Read more...]
Foraging Denver in November
November is not ideal for wild food foraging where I live in Colorado's high country, aside from pine needles for tea and flavoring or willow bark to sooth the ever-present, new-job-related headache from which I suffer. You’ll understand why I’m so excited, then, that—after … [Read more...]
