Hi -

Welcome to Wild Bites #10 from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, a brief biweekly newsletter designed to make you smarter about your wild food. We'll also tell you what we're up to right now - a taste of what's to come on our website, podcast, YouTube, or To The Bone.

 ~ Hank (the chef) and Holly (the photographer)

1. What's Hot Now

2. A Very Rare Deal

People often ask why you can't buy signed copies of Duck, Duck, Goose on our website, and the reason is simple: It was published by a legacy publisher that has control of the book. We could buy it from that publisher and re-sell it, but we pay a lot more per copy than we do with the books we publish (which are 100% made in America, by the way), so the mark-up would be steep. That just doesn't make economic sense - for you or us.

Well, we wound up with a bunch of spare copies of the book that Hank was able to sign, and we are now selling them on our website while supplies last, which won't be long, for just $20 apiece, plus shipping.

As a side note, we announced this first to paid subscribers of To The Bone on Tuesday, so if you've been thinking about starting a paid subscription and wondering whether it'd be worth it, early access to deals like this is the kind of benefit we periodically offer.

3. Smart Take: 'I was wrong'

"For several years after I began hunting, the idea of hanging shot pheasants or partridges undrawn and in the feathers for days and days just did not seem terribly hygienic or sane to me. Old texts wax rhapsodic about the sublime flavor of 'high' game, which usually means pheasants and usually means birds that have hung for more than a week. This, I decided, was madness. I was wrong."

- Hank, in his Guide to Hanging Pheasants

We share this with you not just because we get asked a lot about hanging birds, and not just because everyone loves hearing a smart guy say, "I was wrong." We share it because we've found it really useful to periodically consider that a different way of doing things with wild game might be good, or even better, than how we do things right now.

If you're stuck in any ruts with your upland birds and looking for new things to try, we recommend:

• If you normally skin your birds, try plucking them.
• If you typically breast out your birds, consider breaking them down to use more parts, like braising the legs and making stock from carcasses.
• If you usually oven-roast your birds, try pan-roasting your bird for a degree of perfection that just might blow your mind.
• Hate those sinewy little drumsticks? Confit and shred them to enjoy the flavor without that unpleasant mouthful of tendons that makes you look like you kissed a porcupine.

Here is the gateway to all of our pheasant wisdom and recipes, and if you happen to have a 1 hour and 45 minute drive coming up, check out Hank's podcast about pheasants, which includes his hilarious hunting origin story.

4. What We're Up To

The Hanksperiments are still raging away, and Hank's mild koji chili paste is fermenting like there's no tomorrow. In this photo, Hank had punched it down less than two hours earlier, and it was already erupting into its airlock. This would be fine if we had, say, a commercial kitchen, but this lives in our living room. Yeah, small house, Hanksperiments are everywhere.

It is with some consternation on Holly's part that Hank fled to North Dakota on Tuesday to hunt sharpies, huns and pheasants with our friend Tyler Webster of the Birds, Booze, and Buds podcast, leaving Holly to manage this hot mess. As if it's not bad enough she'll have to cook for herself for a week.

You can read more about Hank's fermentation mania in a free post on To The Bone. And here's the finished dish with one of the sausages he mentions in that post - stangkorv, a fermented Swedish barley, offal and pork sausage: 

Holly is hard at work on the upcoming (waitlisted) Black Heritage Hunt she organizes with her friend, Rue Mapp, as well as pulling together a women's pheasant hunt in California (Cali ladies, if you're interested, ask to join the Outdoorswomen of California Facebook group - that's where the hunt info will be posted).

Also, she recently produced a new video for California duck hunters that walks through the process of applying for reservations to hunt on state-run wildlife areas and national wildlife refuges.

If you'd like to get a taste of Holly's recent Wyoming grouse hunt - the reason she's not pouting about sitting out the NoDak trip - you can read about it in this free post on To The Bone, or just check out photos (and two smartass videos) in this slideshow: 

5. Winner, Winner, Chili Dinner!

We love hearing from readers about their experiences cooking Hank's recipes, and we couldn't resist sharing the mega-trophy that Sam Swanlund won cooking Hank's chili recipe from Buck, Buck, Moose in a chili cookoff at his work - US Bank in Minneapolis.

Sam, who lives in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, used half bison and half beef, and placed first out of 17 entries. A forward-thinking man, he made a double-batch so he'd have some for his church chili cookoff as well. Go, Sam!

Got a fun or crazy story about cooking one of Hank's recipes? Share it with us by hitting reply or using the comment form below.

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