A deep green nettle bread studded with nuts, along with the more crumbly, shortbread-style lembas bread are traditional travel foods wood elves have been making for a very long time. Both are useful, portable foods you can pack in a bag and take with you on a journey, or in my case, a fitting seasonal…
Baking
Candy Cap Bread Pudding
Back when I was running the Salt Cellar, I was dead-set on getting some kind of candy cap dessert on the menu. First I had ice cream, but that wasn’t really interesting enough, and, since I was running a steakhouse concept, I wanted something with a good dose of Americana in it. I thought a…
Blood Bread
Blood bread. This is a great example of historical harvest preserving, and something my Scandinavian ancestors might have made. It’s also spooky sounding and perfect for Halloween. It’s all about being resourceful. When an animal is harvested, the very first things you can collect are blood, and offal, in that literal, visceral, order. These things…
Pigeon Pie
I talked to a hunter last year and told him I was excited to harvest pigeons. He laughed, looked at me like I was idiot, and told me he shoots them and throws them in the woods as they’re not worth eating. I kept my mouth shut. Now, I’ve never really been a hunter, spending…
Wild Blueberry-Maple Sugar Pie
Wild blueberry pie. Is there any better example of the height of summer? Ok, maybe blackcap raspberries, gooseberries, aronia berries and wild cherries too where I live, but blueberry pie is, without a doubt, an American dessert, as they’re native to the New World, and as it’s the state dessert of Maine. The first time…
Cactus Seed Flatbread
Here’s a simple recipe for a flatbread made to compliment my desert stew that’s based around using barrel cactus fruit. Cactus seeds of a number of different cactus are edible, although, I can only speak to eating the seeds of saguaro and barrel cactus, so for this recipe, I’m specifically referring to barrel cactus,…
Wild Herb Brioche
Herbs mixes, herb salt, teas, all of them strike a chord with us that looks back to history: for thousands of years, humans have preseved nice smelling herbs because we like to cook with them. For a dinner I did last year, I wanted to make a bread flavored with herbs I gather, and after…
Goat Milk-Black Truffle Custard Royale
Royale custard is one that is made purely with egg yolks instead of whole eggs. I designed this for my girlfriend who can’t have too much cow dairy, but likes truffles. You can mix and match different dairy as you like, cream will naturally give you a richer final dish, half and half will work…
Sunchoke Flour & Maple Sugar Beignets
Thanksgiving is a good time for reflection, and this year I really enjoyed reading my friend Sean’s article in the Times-an essay on Thanksgiving from an Indigenous perspective. It made me think of a lot of things, mostly about how unfortunate history has been for Native Americans. It’s not my place to weigh-in, but it resonated…
Kale Tart + Mushroom Conserve
This smooth forest-green tart is a recipe from my time as sous chef at Heartland. We had two daily changing tasting menus: one vegetarian, one meat. The vegetarian menu was always the tricky one for me, as cooking good meat by comparison, is easy, you just cook it. Sure, you can always do something like…
Wild Mushroom Sourdough
When I first started to be interested in mushrooms I remember reading somewhere that pioneers, out of desperation, would make a sort of bread from puffballs. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to make, or just taste, bread made with wild mushrooms. There was only problem: I had no idea how to make bread. As fate…
Honey Mushroom and Beef Runzas / Bierocks
Back at the Salt Cellar there was an older couple that would come in every weekend, the staff and I called them our favorite couple. Salad, split entree, then they’d each have a different scoop of ice cream to share. I loved talking to them in between pushes on Friday or Saturday nights. The man…
Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp, With Angelica
From the first time I smelled angelica I’d been trying to figure out the perfect use for it in a dessert, which is easier said than done. Like truffles, the flavor is very strong alone, and almost soapy, but when mixed with too many things, the taste and aroma disappear completely. To further compound things,…