With my deep Midwest roots comes a love of “bars”. Bars are basically any kind of desert that can be made in a sheet pan, sliced into rectangles and then eaten easily with your hands. From lemon bars, to brownies, to cookies, or anything that combines all of the above. Go to any potluck in Minnesota and you’ll find a whole section devoted just to bars. It’s down past the hotdish zone. A couple of years ago when I first landed on the otherworldly deliciousness of the rhubarb/spurce-tip combo, it became clear that literally anything you make that uses this combo is going to be a winner (see: Sp ..read more

As any Juneau-ite can testify, we live in a land of micro-climates. To the forager, an intimate awareness of the way weather moves through our landscape is the difference between a picking season of a few days, and a picking season of a month. Especially when it comes to plants like devil’s club. For a magically short window, devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus), the bane of any bushwhacker, grows delicious buds, packed full of nutrients and flavor. The window consists of when the bud pushes through it’s reddish inedible sheath and extends 1-2 inches with a soft velvety texture. As soon as the b ..read more

Once upon a time, I was a Russian enthusiast. As an early twenty-something nerd, I fell deeply in love with mid 19th and early 20th century Russian novels, resulting in a double major in Russian and Comparative Literature. I spent years studying Russian intonation patterns and Lermontov’s unreliable narrators. The most memorable part of that pursuit was the six months I spent going to university in Moscow, and then the following months where I traveled by train across the full expanse of the country. As you would probably guess, I had the chance to try some delicious, and really interesting fo ..read more

Welcome to season two of Eating Wild! I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to bring you another round of bi-weekly columns focused on incorporating the local and bountiful wild ingredients of Southeast Alaska into everyday meals. My aim is to produce easy, delicious and creative recipes that speak to the unique heart of what it means to live in a coastal community in the Tongass National Forest. I have a couple of recipes planned, expect to see: devil’s club buds, spruce tips, nettles, seaweeds, beach asparagus, fireweed shoots, wild mushrooms, berries galore and whatever else I can get my han ..read more

When I was first asked if I’d be interested in doing a wild foods column for the Juneau Empire, I was a little nervous. It’s one thing to have a blog read by friends and family, it’s another thing to publish recipes in print in your local paper — the same paper that I used to deliver up and down Long Run Drive when I worked as a papergirl in elementary school. So many folks over the last several months have stopped me  — on the street, at concerts and the grocery store — to tell me that they’ve tried one of my recipes, or have enjoyed reading “Eating Wild” and have gotten new ideas from i ..read more

While our lush forest of evergreen spruce, hemlock and cedar may not cater to the grand landscapes of color “leaf-peepers” seek out in upstate New York, the fall colors of our alpine and muskegs can feel just as magical, if in miniature. Sit yourself down on a mossy hillock in one of our muskegs and you’ll find yourself in the midst of golds, purples, wine reds, oranges and violets. You’ll also be at exactly the right level to notice the smattering of jewels, also known as cranberries, that are nestled on the surface of the moss. The bog cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccos) found in our muskegs a ..read more

It’s a commonly held belief that taste and smell are the senses most closely tied to memory. The smell of highbush cranberries is unmistakable – pungent and musky. I love it. It’s the smell of the return of early evening twilight and crisp September days. In a land of evergreen spruce, hemlock, and cedar, the beautiful gold and maroon of high-bush cranberry shrubs as they turn each fall is a breath of fresh air. We had a highbush cranberry shrub in our front yard growing up, but these days I pick them along the edges of muskegs. It’s best to wait until after the first frost so the berries can ..read more

To add a little spice to my life, I’m spending the month of October adhering to The Whole 30 diet, an eating regimen that requires the elimination of all grains, legumes, sugar, alcohol and dairy. The idea being that you reset your system by removing all the foods that folks sometimes have trouble with, and then slowly add them back into your diet at the end of 30 days and pay attention to how your body responds to different foods. For me, it translates into a way to be more thoughtful about what I eat, get away from buying those random snacks (I’m looking at you Rookery cookies and Breeze In ..read more

While I’ve spent most of my mushrooming life picking only non-gilled species of mushrooms, today I finally branched out with the help of my dad. He’s spent a good chunk of time this summer reading, re-reading, picking samples, and studying up until he was positive of how he was identifying gypsies. And then he took me out into the field and picked with me, both of us talking through each mushroom, noting the differences in mushrooms of different ages and verifying each others picks. And dang, am I glad I did! Meet the beautiful and deliciously mushroomy gypsy mushroom (Cortinarius caperatus ..read more

Fresh, clean, with a little bite and celery undertones, this easy and delicious salad highlights the flavor of wild lovage. Lovage, a member of the parsley family, grows on sandy beaches across the state. Once you learn to recognize it, it’s hard to miss with its triplet of three leaflets, each often with three lobes, and growing in a mound that looks exactly like an overgrown pile of flat-leaf parsley. Lovage has a strong parsley smell, so you’ll immediately know if you have the right plant. But as always, with any plant you’re picking for the first time, pick a sample, bring it home and matc ..read more