Candied mushrooms? Like, with sugar?? Hard pass. Candied mushrooms are the sort of frou-frou B.S. I’d expect 15 year old me to try making, or a young cook still trying to figure out what a palette is. Honestly, I found the idea so annoying it was nearly offensive. These are mushrooms we’re talking about, I…
Sweets
How to Taste a Landscape
The jack pine barrens are one of the most beautiful, unique landscapes I know. There’s gently rolling hills as far as you can see, with dips of kettles, those spots where glaciers paused, making depressions in the Earth. The green hills are dotted here and there with the scorched black skeletons of old jack pines–a…
Wild Berry Frango
With the heat wave baking most of the U.S. this week, I reached for a tried and true, but most importantly, icy cold dessert to end a couple meals. Frango is a sort of half-frozen, old-timey dessert made from yogurt and cream, traditionally flavored with maple syrup. It’s a great thing to make if you…
Angelica Blossoms (Zavirne)
“These angelicas grow wild near abandoned ruins and damp places. In February the Salentines go feverishly in search of them. This is the moment when the incipient flower-heads are still enclosed in their sheaths right up against the greenish-purple stem. You cut these sheaths with a knife”. –Patience Grey, Honey From a Weed. I love…
Classic Spruce Tip Syrup
I have to preface this by apologizing. I’m sorry for not getting this up sooner. I’ve been writing this website for years, and although I have a spruce tip syrup that tastes like spruce, it’s not the most powerful one you can make–it’s a hybrid, a shortcut. That older recipe of mine was back from…
Spruce Tip Panna Cotta
Spruce tip panna cotta is a great alternative to make if you don’t have an ice cream maker for my signature spruce tip ice cream recipe. Panna cotta is great for a lot of reasons: it’s relatively cheap, easy enough for a blind-folded child to make, and refreshing for those warm summer or late spring…
Maple Sap Soda
Ever wondered “can I make something from maple sap?”. I have. There’s just something about sap that’s fun, it’s like tree water, and, its bountiful. There has to be some great use for it, right? You bet, maple sap can be used to make maple syrup. Sarcasm aside, if you haven’t had it, maple sap…
Black Walnut-Maple Honey
I love old cookbooks. Recently For research on lamb and goat recipes for the farm I work with, I’ve been collecting old Scottish and Irish books, most from around the 1900’s, since I know they historically work with lots of lamb and small ruminants. Aside from all of the great recipes like hotch potch I…
Winter Pavlova
Sunday, Wednesday, spring, summer or winter–anytime is a good time for pavlova. If you’ve ever had one, I’ll bet you’re agreeing with me, especially if you’ve eaten one gilded with fresh berries in the height of summer. If you’re not familiar, pavlovas are a desert made of a meringue nest, the top chiseled out or…
Wild Plum Preserves
This is the greatest recipe for preserving wild plums I’ve ever had, and it should be–it’s taken me about 4 years to dial it in properly. For years I’ve been searching for a way to candy wild plums like this: soft, tart, yet sweet, with their flesh candied to the point of creamy, goodness. The…
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…
Wild Blueberry Sauce with Sweetfern
Blueberries, as delicious as they are, always seem to disappoint me when I see them in sauce form. You know the sauce I’m talking about, the thick, gloppy, sauce so sweet it will make your teeth fall out of your head stuff that comes from a can. Sure, people like it, but they like the…
Nannyberry Pudding
Nannyberry pudding has been the latest wild fruit cypher I’ve been trying to crack. After I made my first batch of nannyberry (Viburnum lentago and similar) butter/puree, I knew it would be a beginning, not an end. I knew reducing the water and cooking the fruit pulp slowly into a thick concentrate will be great…