Spring has been something of a whipsaw for me this year.
It has been a wonderful year so far for growing things, and my new cactus garden -- lots of prickly pears and cholla, both of which will eventually give me delicious buds and fruit -- is coming along well; it's my nod to this horrid drought we've been having in California for four years now.
In my vegetable garden, I had a great harvest of peas and wild arugula, lettuces and chervil, carrots and fennel and angelica. But by now the remnants of the winter garden are either faded or gone. In its place are pole beans and melons, tomatoes and
peppers and odder vegetables like agretti and New Zealand spinach and tomatillos. This has been the good part of this season.
But along with it have come setbacks that remind me that life is not an idyll. Chief among them is the loss of my beloved cat Harlequin, who escaped from the parking lot of the veterinarian's office two weeks ago. She has not been seen since. I am holding out hope that she will return to us, or be found. She is an eight-year-old, mostly outdoor cat who is naturally shy of humans. If any cat is savvy enough to navigate the 2 1/2 mile trek from the vet's office to
her home in our yard, it's her. But not knowing where she is or even if she's still alive hurts. Bad. She is my friend, and I miss her dearly.
Her loss has taken the life out of me. I should be catching striped bass and picking morel mushrooms and wild onions, hunting turkeys and making elderflower cordial. But I can't bring myself to it just yet. Hopefully my cat will return soon.
Elsewhere in the country, May is indeed a busy month.
In the Southwest, cholla buds are ready for harvest; if you've never eaten them, they are the bud of this particular cactus that tastes a bit like an artichoke heart. Palo verde beans are also at their peak, and when you catch them young and green they are a lot like a fresh fava bean, only with a lingering taste of ozone
that reminds you of the smell of rain.
Here in California, regular artichokes are in season, as
are morels, spring porcini mushrooms, wild onions, elderflowers, sea beans, New Zealand spinach, which grows wild on our coasts, wild ginger, loquats -- a Chinese fruit tree you can often see as a landscaping plant -- and soon, mulberries.
On the coast, the yellowtail are running in SoCal, rockfish and lingcod here in NorCal. We're getting a good halibut run in the San Francisco Bay and the striped bass season has been one for the ages. May will bring the shad, too. Spring salmon in the Pacific Northwest has been good, and the flounder, redfish, speckled trout and bluefish seasons are
gearing up. Walleyes are open in the Midwest, and hungry pike are lurking -- hit them right after ice out in northern lakes. Crappie fishing has been good in the South, too.
Turkey season is winding down all over the country, and in those areas with wild pigs, May is an excellent month to hunt them -- they will be fat and with the drier weather, easier to pattern.
Eastern foragers will be busy with morels, fiddleheads, ramps, knotweed, pokeweed, wild onions, black locust flowers, elderflowers, sea rocket on the sandy coasts, juneberries, daylily buds and asparagus.
What I've Been Writing
For those of you who are new to this newsletter, I've recently become a columnist for Petersen's Magazine, one of the largest hunting and fishing magazines in America. My column covers food (obviously) and it's called "Fare Game." You can read it in every issue;
look for a piece on bear soon. (You can read my latest column on Petersen's here. It's all about venison backstraps.)
Mostly, however, I've been working on my next book. Our working title is Buck, Buck, Moose. I am still working on exactly how it will be published -- more on this in the coming months. The book is intended as a sequel to Duck, Duck,
Goose, and will follow that book's structure, only covering all forms of North American venison, from whitetail, blacktail and mule deer to antelope (the second "buck" in the title), as well as elk, moose and caribou. Stay tuned for updates on the book's progress.
And here's what I've been up to on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook lately:
- It's starting to get warmer now, time to think about dishes that won't heat up your kitchen. If you have a crockpot, this recipe is the trick. It's a variant of Mexican barbacoa from the Yucatan, and it's basically a salad of slow-cooked, shredded venison tossed with orange and lime juice and served with pickled onions, cilantro and chiles. Really great on tortilla chips!
- Warmer weather also means sausages on the grill. And I happen to be a fan of sauerkraut on my brats, so I designed my own special kraut for this summer. I happened to grow a lot of fennel bulbs, and so I shredded them and mixed the fennel with cabbage to make a fennel sauerkraut. It's really, really good and well worth your time to make.
- Fishing is getting into high gear, and I like nothing better than simply seared fish fillets served with whatever vegetables happen to be in season. Here's my rendition of fish with spring vegetables.
- Finally, I've been making all sorts of handmade pastas, as I always do. But I recently learned a great new shape that needs no machine or special skill: gnocchi ricci. Here's how to make this pasta, tossed with a simple, homemade pesto.
Something to Eat
Below you'll see two recipes that I
think are perfect for May. One's a little fancy, one's super easy and good for a worknight. I hope you give them a try.
