Happy April, food & foraging friends!
Yes, I’m a happy April fool, because it’s my birthday, and I get to spend it hunting for morels, nature’s precious gifts! But there’s a lot more to the season, and I can’t wait to share what I’m finding with you.
To that end, here are a few upcoming walks and other events where you can find me:
April 30: Urban Foraging “Crash Course”
May 1 & May 7: Urban Foraging Tour and Cider Tasting (May 1 date sold out)
June 25 & 26: Mushroom Culinary & Related Demonstrations for Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s “Earth Optimism” theme, National Mall, DC (more details to come)
July 4: Mushroom foray and cookout, Greenbelt Park, Greenbelt MD (must be member of the Mycological Association of Washington to attend)
August 12-14: Feast and Forage Tour of Virginia’s Northern Neck, Sharps, VA (tour description here – pricing coming soon!)
Left/top: A little home entomophagy (insect eating) with Joseph Yoon of Brooklyn Bugs, including savory mealworm pancakes, cricket stirfry and spicy marinated scorpion. Right/bottom: So many wild spring goodies up right now, including mallow, violets (leaves and flowers edible), redbud, ramps, dandelions, mugwort, and my cat Ninjette’s personal favorite, wild onion.
There is a world of flavors in the woods and yards right now, and here are a few things I’m eating: wild violet and redbud salad with creamy ramp herb dressing; mugwort crackers with wild onion marmalade; and BUGS!
Having gotten an earful from Fox Haven wilderness instructor Drev (my blog about that here) about the scrumptious textures and flavors of scorpions and pill bugs, I was ready to try a mouthful myself, and signed up for a Gastro Obscura class with master insect chef Joseph Yoon of Brooklyn Bugs. The bugs we’re cooking with are farmed, not foraged, but no less sustainable. Under Chef Joseph’s tutelage, we’ve made such delicacies as scorpions marinated in gochujang sauce and mealworm scallion pancakes (I added wild ramps and mugwort to mine), and will be developing our own recipes in a coming class. (No, bugs do not taste like chicken: tasting profiles range from nutty to sour. It’s a whole new world of tastes for me!)
I’ll be joining Gastro Obscura in person for a Forest to Table foraging tour of Alpine Slovenia this June, so get ready for a travel edition of The Wild Life!
Hope you all are getting out to enjoy the gorgeous spring ephemerals like bloodroot and trout lilies (for eyes only!) right now, and hope to catch you all in the woods or kitchen soon.
Wildly yours,
April