Wild Bites #55: a 6-minute read that makes you smarter about wild food and tells you what's to come on the website, podcast, YouTube, or To The Bone.   ~ Hank  Spicy roasted okra. No slime. All flavor.    Here's what's trending on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook: - If you still have some deer meat, grilled venison tacos are a great thing to serve at a Labor Day party. This is a real-deal, carne asada-style venison taco. Â
- It's time! Okra season is in full swing, and I absolutely love spicy roasted
okra. This is a way to cook them with no slime.Â
- I'm still seeing a lot of nice-looking wild grape leaves in Minnesota, but you don't need to make your own preserved grape leaves to make Greek dolmades, the meat or rice-stuffed grape leaves. I love these as a party appetizer when it's hot out.Â
- This may well be the One Ring of fish recipes. Chinese sweet and sour fish is astonishingly good, and works with any firm fish. Make
this. You won't be sad.Â
- Mushrooms are still popping everywhere, and if you get a surplus of things like chanterelles, agaricus, lobsters or lactarius, definitely think about making Polish style fermented mushroom pickles. Think salty dill pickle, only a
mushroom.Â
- Like enchiladas? Of course you do. If you use a Mexican mole sauce instead of a red or green chile sauce, you have enmoladas. You'll definitely want to try this one out.Â
Moving up the list: Dunno why, but my recipe for Mexican tetelas is trending! These are little masa triangles filled with beans and cheese. Fun to make and pretty.    Love these or any of my recipes? Please rate them while you're there so people searching for recipes know they're worth clicking on!  An Arizona-inspired dove popper, with dates and bacon. Dove season arrives this weekend, and it marks the traditional start to the fall's hunting seasons -- much as the sharp-tailed grouse season marks the start in places like North Dakota and Montana.  I love hunting and cooking doves and pigeons, so here's a
suggested line-up of dove dishes for you to try, kind of in order... Â - OK, on the dove opener, you really should consider eating dove poppers. I know, I know, but the tradition of the popper on Labor Day is almost as strong as the turkey on Thanksgiving. I have two popper recipes. One, an ode to Arizona, uses dates, and another that relies on roasted green chile and roasted garlic. I think they're way better than traditional poppers.Â
- If you hate
poppers, or want a nice change, the other traditional Labor Day dove recipe I do is doves a la Mancha. I invented this recipe, and it's become something of a classic in the dove hunting community.Â
- Doves and pigeons love the grill, and I have a
few grilled dove recipes. I love my teriyaki doves recipe, and the Cajun grilled doves ain't so bad, either.Â
- Once you have a few doves, take some time and make smoked doves with a red chile sauce. It's a traditional dish in Sonora, Mexico and is amazing.Â
- I am a huge
fan of Southern tomato gravy, and serving this over chicken-fried dove breasts is phenomenal. Make twice as much as you think you need.Â
And if you want to read about the hair-raising, bigoted origins of the ban on dove hunting in certain states, mostly in the Northeast, I wrote about this over at To the Bone. As experienced as I am with savory cooking, pickling, cured meats and such, I still have a lot to learn about making jams, jellies and preserves. The reason is because until I started baking bread on the regular, I never really ate them. Welp, my life and habits have changed.  What's more, the berry picking in Minnesota is off the chain! So many different fruits to choose from, and because we have long winters, I've been canning lots. Turns out making a nice jam or jelly is harder than I'd thought.  You'll want to read all about common mistakes (I've made a lot of them), and then read the outstanding comments section after the post -- looks like I have a bunch of experts who read To the Bone, and they were generous with their advice and help!  To celebrate the opening of doves and grouse and ptarmigan and other small game seasons, I am offering $6 off the already discounted price of $26 for my small game book Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail. That's cheaper than Amazon!  Use the code LOVEYDOVEY at checkout here, and you'll get that discount.  I chose $6 because that discount will effectively cancel out shipping costs for most of you. This sale is good until the end of the first dove season, which in most places
is September 15. Good luck out there, and hope you like the book.   It's the hottest it's been all summer as I write this, with a heat index over 106F. But it will break by the time you read this newsletter, with lows in the low 50s. Summer is ending, and we're all freaking out.  Winters are long here, and can be hard. Last winter wasn't, but two
years ago was a doozy. So we're all running around with FOMO trying to see everyone and do everything before the snow flies. We still have a couple months, maybe, but the crisp weather will be here as soon as this weekend. Â Not for me, though. I'll be spending the weekend in Yuma, Arizona dove hunting. It'll
likely be 112F there. Not a typo. Anything over about 105F and the "dry heat" thing gets tossed out the window. I'll be guzzling water and slathering on sunscreen as I try to hit a few doves this weekend for the opener.  Before and after that interlude, it's full-throttle gathering time. Berries up the
ying-yang, and hazelnuts if I can find any; was a terrible year for them here in the Twin Cities. Hoping the butternuts will be OK...  Fall mushrooms have already started. Hen of the woods are being found here. Chanterelles are still going, and the boletes are starting, too. Up in California's high
country, some porcini are showing up, and more should arrive soon. The monsoons were good in the Southwest.  I'm hoping to hunt birds up in North Dakota this fall with my friend Tyler, and maybe down in Kansas with my friend Jim. It's shaping up to be a more normal hunting season for me -- although for the
4th straight year I got skunked on tag applications, so I guess I'll just plink a few whitetail does in Oklahoma this winter like I did last year. Sigh.  Hope everyone out there is getting after it! Gather, fish, hunt -- it's all on! Be safe, eat well, and know that I appreciate all of you. Until next
time,  ~ Hank  Comments?Let us know what you think about Wild Bites by using our anonymous comment form - we love to hear from you, and we read
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