Hank Shaw's Blog, page 74

I've been making mustard at home for years, but many people don't realize that making mustard is super easy -- and can be as varied as your imagination. Do it yourself and you might never buy mustard again.

Elderflower cordial -- really a syrup -- is a classic use for these incredibly aromatic flowers of spring. Use this to make homemade soda, add it to gin, or make it into a sorbet whenever you want to remember the first warm breezes of the year.

Fiddleheads are in season in the East and Pacific Northwest, and these crunchy, pretty looking shoots are one of the hallmarks of springtime. They're featured here in a simple Asian stir fry with wild boar backstrap.

Pickling ramp bulbs -- or the bulbs of any large wild onion -- is a great way to preserve the harvest. These are fantastic served with cured meats and cheeses, or chopped into a relish or just eaten as a snack.

My cat has gone missing. We have not seen her in more than a week, and I feel dead inside because of it. I try to stay positive, or at least stoic, and busy myself with the green renewal that is my garden. My garden. Where my cat and I first met each other, years ago.

Cacciatore means "hunter" in Italian, and this is a recipe for a spicy, hunter's style salami you can carry around with you in the field. I make them with narrower hog casings so they're easier to make than traditional wide salami. Use pork, venison or boar.

This is a very traditional recipe for duck sausages, made with caraway, juniper and sage. It works very well with "off" ducks like spoonies, snow geese, diver or sea ducks, or Canada geese.

When life gives you arugula -- a wild version grows like a weed in my yard -- you make arugula pesto. A peppery, bracing pesto that matches really well with homemade pasta.

Simply roast quail is the bedrock skill of any quail hunter, or anyone who wants to cook store-bought quail. Roasting these little birds isn't rocket science, but there are a few tricks to getting it right. Here's how I do it.

Seeing. Really seeing the world around you. How vital it is to human existence, yet how rare a thing it has become. In the world of foraging, seeing and reading the daily news that those signs tell you mark the difference between success and failure.