ENOKI 🍄 (Flammulina velutipes) – a wintertime fave, are finally popping at some of my spots! A tasty snack I foraged well into February this past winter!
#wildfoodlove #foragedfood #enoki #flammulinavelutipes Ohio
GARLIC MUSTARD 😤 it’s delicious and INVASIVE and its grated roots taste like SLIGHTLY SWEET HORSERADISH and it’s leaves smell DELIGHTFULLY GARLICKY and if you find some of its rosettes (plants heading into their second and final year) NOW IS THE TIME TO PULL EM! FOR THE ECOSYSTEM!
They make a MEAN pesto right now, before they get the chance to get a lil more bitter in Spring! So GO! GO GET EM! FREE SNACK! Ohio
I’d been stewing over this (and a ton of similar comments), and I feel like I’ve talked a lot about why I call my page blackforager in a historical context, but not why it’s also important on a personal level for me ❤️ and honestly, I’m so lucky because while I pulled out my own chair at the foraging table, my parents pulled out the chair at the “outdoorsy” table, and that’s the foundation on which my love of flora and fungi stands.
Rose hips!! The ones that are left are perfect in my neck of the woods! But when snacking be wary!! The hairy seeds can be… not fun… on their way out 😆💩
This post was sponsored by Hank and John Green! It’s wild to me that two of my favorite creators of things think my content is worth believing in and worth supporting 😭❤️ @hankgreen @johngreenwritesbooks
#rosehips Ohio
I spent a week in the warm and this is the sole video I had to show for it and I love it that way!!! I got a week of giving and receiving so much love and being present and my friends seeing me cry (and grow??) A LOT 😆❤️ My cup feels truly full for the first time in over a year, and I’m glad to be back on here bee-bopping with all of you! I also got to try Chaya which was the ONE wild plant I wanted to try while in Tulum and it was DELICIOUS!!
There were too many thoughts to fit into this 3 minute video. As a vegan who tries to eat a local as I can, that is the choice I make to try and limit the suffering caused by my hand and by my wallet.
Ngl, I used to feel pretty high and mighty about it, but the older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve learned about how food systems, farms, pest control, labor practices, the more I find that the only completely wrong answer is not caring about your food at all.
So many people want one answer. They want it to be the be all, the end all, the most correct. But at this point we’re all so interconnected (lol, and we’ve lowkey ruined enough things) that there isn’t one fix for all people in all places.
Here in Ohio, foraging and local farms fit into my budget, my schedule, and our ecosystem. So I make the decisions I do.
None of this is to say that big meat farms don’t do a world of harm in terms of resources (lol, all giant farms do), but to maybe convince someone to give a bit of grace and understanding to someone who is trying.
All we can do it try. Idk, now I’m just rambling.
If you made it this far, I love you. If you didn’t that’s cool, I love you, too 💕
GREEN BOUILLON THINGY 🍀 When I see @garbonsai do a cool thing… it makes me also want to do a cool thing… so I did the cool thing. Also no need to panic fellow Ohioans!! I filmed this a week ago! And forgot to post it 🤣
Now I can join @mnforager in the “people yelling at me for eating snow” club 😆
Which WHILE WE’RE HERE: Yes, snow catches some pollution… so does… everything else 😆 trace levels of pesticides and pollutants are below what’s acceptable for drinking water, and I gathered my snow in my front yard where I know there’s been no salt, and where no plows could’ve put down sand!
I had never seen so many folks pressed about snow consumption 😆 Maybe not caring about it is a weird Midwest thing? I’m so glad we’re thinking critically about our food, and I’m so glad y’all are concerned about my well-being!💕 but YALL. Let the kids eat some snow. But not the yellow kind 🤣 Ohio
Wisteria! 💜 One of the flowers I hoped to find while in LA 🌞 syrup recipe is on its way!
Spicy times in the woods 🤣 Found a lot of familiar friends (Enokis, Turkey Tails, Oysters) and some new ones, like this Leafy Brain 🧠
Jelly fungi are not the faves of friends who are iffy on wiggly foods, but I think they’re fun and add some RAD textures to dishes! Ohio
SNOW CREAM 🍨 @mnforager and I were on the same wavelength today! We got a lot more snow than we expected in Columbus which means TWO THINGZ
1. I have to re-shovel the sidewalk in the morning 😆
2. SNOW CREAM TIME!
For those of you wanting to make a non-dairy sweetened condensed milk, it’s equal parts milk and sugar, cooked down for at least 40 mins (preferably 60 but that’s a LONG TIME TO STAND N STIR 😆)
The end was rushed because the HANGER SET IN 🤣 I feel like I get asked a lot about what all the things I find become in the kitchen! Here is one of those things! Also Jagacida crispy rice is EVERYTHING and I WILL BE DOING THIS AGAIN ASAP Ohio
Shelling up a STORM of Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra) ahead of big meal making. It’s my first time hosting a holiday dinner! Wish me luck!! 🤣
The spring countdown has BEGUN in my house! In just a few short weeks the Spicebush and Cornelian Cherries will be blooming, and the days will get warmer and longer (more time to play around outside!)
In what is likely the first of MANY Magnolia recipes, here is a simple fresh flower bud tea. I went down a RESEARCH RABBIT HOLE 🕳 and found that Xin Yi Hua tea is supposed to be warming, and good for tummyaches, so I though I’d give it a try!
The taste was like a magnolia flower whispering an ancient secret to you, warming and subtle, with a taste better than the tea’s smell!
I tried with Saucer Magnolia, but now I wanna test with some others! No magnolia flowers are toxic, but be wary of places where they could be sprayed! 💖💕
I hope y’all love oysters, enoki, garlic mustard, bark, roots, and edible conifers because we are in the THICK OF WINTER 😆 and THATS WHAT I GOTS TO CHOOSE FROM Ohio
CHOWDER! SNOW! IM WRITING A BOOK!
I’m sure lots of you have noticed me bring it up in comments but I’m writing a book! Thank you @simonandschuster (Simon Element to be exact!) for having faith in this goober, and now the best thing y’all can do is FORGET I TOLD YOU THIS UNTIL ITS TIME FOR PREORDERS 😆😆😆
FORGET BOOK(for now). EMBRACE SOUP.
Went with @honeybadgerbk and @the_c_u_r_b and @livforaged to the pines and found a wonderful surprise: acidic soil-loving Wintergreen! Did’ja know it’s a berry, not just a gum flavor? Also found another classic late-autumn berry: Cranberries! They do be loving similar spaces…
Hi hello! Let’s learn about spore printing and Brick Cap mushrooms!
Happy to be back after a truly accidental break from social media and while I missed y’all… it was NICE 😆
I hope everyone is finding some bits and bobs of joy and/or rest this week before we head into the new year! ❤️❤️❤️
Here we go through the longest night, into longer and brighter days.
As I get older, I grow more at peace with cycles. Everyday can’t be high summer, wind moving thick blankets of leaves, sun hugging your brow til it sweats.
Winter is necessary. Winter is inevitable. The same could be said for rest. This year I’m leaning into the gift of more time inside, more sleep, more time to dream in the night and in the day. More time to write without the quiet pressure to be outside always, lest I miss something, anything.
I’m offering a truce to Winter after DECADES of beefing… but I’m also going to close my eyes eating this here Juneberry square and for just a second feel summer’s embrace.
EXTENDED CUT!! As a kid, our neighbors’ holiday party was always fun for a myriad of reasons… bUT maybe one of my favorite bits were the NEEDHAMS! A candy created in Maine in the late 1800’s, using potatoes (!!!), powdered sugar, and shredded coconut, coated in dark chocolate.
As I was going through my jars, as I oft do in winter 😆, I held my wintergreen extract and wondered…….. what if I used the same candy making method to make knock off peppermint patties??
The answer is… with a touch more powdered sugar, yes! It was still *technically* successful, but a firmer sugar dough would probs help a TON! They taste GREAT tho!!
Eff a pilgrim, and to all those also hosting tomorrow, I salute you 🤣
This is not sponsored by the Met it’s sponsored by my love of art history through extremely niche lenses
ACORN POPPING BUBBLES 🐿🛁 – the cold is the time when I turn inwards and experiment with what I scampered around the woods gathering all year!!
I wanted to see if lil bubbles were possible with only foraged ingredients (this has been my ✨gentle hyperfixation✨ for about a week now), and this was the result!
Both starch and carrageenan (the often maligned polysaccharide in Irish Moss) make things 🌊wobble🌊 by releasing long, bendy molecules that hold liquids in place a lil better. When liquids aren’t as SLIPPY, they thicken! Starches absorb some of the hot liquid as well, so the one/two punch of these two seemed like it would work in my head! I’m glad it worked IRL, too! 🤣
Acorn Bread Stuffing. The extended cut. Do I love stuffing? Yes. But also eff a pilgrim.
