With a few hours to kill in Michigan earlier this spring, I headed out to scope some new territory. While I was hoping to add to the small, aged morel cache from earlier in the week, I settled instead for a few oyster mushrooms and dryad’s saddle, also known as pheasant backs. Pheasant backs are …
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Well, that didn’t last. Less than 10 hours after I’d nibbled on those first shoots of spring, I walked out the door to find those tasty little wild garlic shoots buried under inches of snow. Apparently the 2018 foraging season will be getting off to a late start.
The first shoots of wild edibles are beginning to appear in New York and I’m thrilling at their arrival. Late at night, on my way home from the gym, on Easter Sunday, I can’t stop myself from stepping off the sidewalk to pull at the first hints of allium. Wild garlic has begun sprout in …
I suppose when you grow up in Michigan it’s natural to think the third Thursday in November is meant to be hunted. It’s a tradition that was more common with the men of my youth than myself, however. Still, this Thanksgiving found me less in the kitchen than normal, and so late in the morning …
It’s Mother’s Day when I finally arrive in Benzie County and I have nothing but a handful of leeks to show for it. Every forest I’ve stepped into has been bone dry, save for Waterloo at the southern end of the state. Hunting what the DNR labeled a small 2015 burn, but which was barely …
I leave NJ in a tremble of excitement. I leave NJ in a driving in rain. I’m headed west, it’s spring, and the maps I watch and the mushroom groups I follow all indicate that Michigan is on the precipice of morel season. I pack my bags—no nice clothes, just jeans for the evening, a …
Why let a little rain stop me? On the first Sunday in May I bundle up and head out. It’s probably still early in the season, but I’m dying to get out, so I grab my raincoat and head southeast. My plan had been to work my way into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a …
Every time I’m in Walla Walla in the spring I press my foraging friends into taking me out into the woods. This April was no different. It’s cold when I arrive at John and Mary’s house early on a Tuesday morning, but I’m glad to see Bella and Blossom, the couple’s two black labs, and that …
It’s too early for morels, probably too dry, too, but I headed to Virginia last week looking for my favorite springtime wild edible anyway. Actually, that’s not true. I went south to learn about Virginia wines and to attend the Virginia Wine Summit, but that gave me an excuse to arrive early and scout the area. I made …
It’s always the last thing you spot, the hidden-in-plain site prize feet away from your car. I descended on the Delaware Water Gap, just west of the Appalachian Trail, on a sunny late March Saturday, the day before Easter. It was 60 degrees, unseasonable but welcome, and while I didn’t expect to find much, morel …