Hi -

Welcome to Wild Bites #11 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. It's like having Hank help you break down and cook a deer.

If you're reading Wild Bites, we know you're pretty comfortable with learning from the written word. But when it comes to processing game and cooking, we also know sometimes you just want someone to show you what to do. At long last, we can meet that need with Hank's first course on OutdoorClass: Venison 101.

To celebrate, OutdoorClass is offering 20% off its $99 annual subscription right now using code SHAW. This gets you access to the entire suite of classes about hunting and preparing wild game, not just Hank's. We know you'll love having this kind of access 24/7, and someone on your holiday giving list might appreciate it as well.

You can read more about it here, and click here to sign up.

3. Smart Take: The Swiss Army Knife of Wild Game Cookery

Bierocks, a cousin of the Nebraskan runza, are the Swiss Army Knife of wild game cookery. Endlessly versatile, easy to make, handy to carry into the field and freezable, this is a recipe you will want to memorize. 

I first learned about them on a hunt with my friend Jim Millensifer, who lives in western Kansas, home of the bierock. I soon learned that this German-Slavic meat-kraut-onion bun is a game changer. Literally. Jim likes to fill his with sharp-tailed grouse meat, a notoriously tricky animal to cook, and I followed suit. I loved it. 

Since then, I've filled the bierocks with basically everything you can think of, from poultry to venison to pork and mushrooms. You don't have to follow the rules, either. Sauerkraut, onions and meat, with some mustard, is traditional. But these rolls are absolutely killer filled with Mexican picadillo or shredded venison birria. Or anything else you can think of.

4. What We're Up To

Skunked on opening day of pheasant season in North Dakota!? Unbelievably, it happened to Hank. But he and our buddy Tyler Webster of the Birds, Booze, and Buds podcast rallied on the second day of the season. You can read about the hunt here.

As soon as Hank got home from that hunt, he began processing birds and cooking up a storm in advance of surgery on his torn meniscus, because we had no idea how long he'd be off his feet. We even recorded a new video on how to pluck a pheasant, which is in the queue for editing (coming soon on Hank's YouTube channel). 

Surgery was Wednesday and it went well: He's already walking around without crutches! 

Holly finally came home from a quail hunt with some meat! After several fruitless attempts at mountain quail in the Sierra, she headed to the Coastal Range with Field & Stream writer/editor Sage Marshall last weekend, where they reveled in the glory of 40-strong coveys of California quail. Not that they're any easier to hit than mountain quail, but at least you get more chances.

And you're not going to believe this, but on a mountain quail hunt on Oct. 6, she got into morels! On Oct. 6! They should have been done in June. She wrote about that a bit in her latest piece for To The Bone. Morels aside, the story looks at what's so appealing about even hunts with terrible odds, going deeper than "the worst day of hunting is better than the best day of work." It comes down to what kind of world she wants - and doesn't want - to live in.

Hank dropped that quail, a squirrel from the same hunt, the morels and some chard that survived the blazing hot summer into a Mulligan stew Monday night - you can read Hank's take on making stew with what you have here.

5. Home-Made Duck Gear Rules

Holly's not a cheapskate - she's happy to pay for good guns, good jackets, and good waders. But sometimes the gear manufacturers let her down, and when that happens, she improvises.

Holly's Hacks is about her success stories, including that goofy but really effective hat above, a hunting snack container that's super convenient and trash-free, and a pack frame that eliminates the need to push a cart full of decoys through the mud.

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