Wild Porcini

Finally, I found my first wild porcini! My first small, dirty, bug- and rodent- and maggot-eaten wild porcini.

Nice Meal

Pan-seared farmed steelhead trout with ratatouille and roasted fingerling potatoes. The salad is baby salad greens with carmelized pear and roasted walnuts. The wine is Unti Rose 2008, the best pink wine made in America.

And for dessert, molten chocolate cake with a bit of vanilla Tofutti Dairy Free Frozen Dessert, which is a million times better than it sounds.

Wild Grape Jelly, Abridged Version

Here's a highly abbreviated recipe for wild grape jelly. First, I'm assuming you have 5-10 pounds of wild grapes.

Put them in a pot with some water and boil them:

Actually, as you put them in the pot above, you should strip the grapes off their stems one cluster at a time. If you haven't done that yet, do it now.

Okay, the grapes are cooked. Transfer the juice to another pot, straining and smooshing as you go:


Put in a bunch of sugar but not too much, and some tart apple slices, and start boiling. While you're doing this, sanitize your jars.


Okay, here comes the hard part.

Take out the apple slices. Keep boiling and stirring for a long time. When the jam is ready, transfer it to your jars. You will know when it's ready once you become an experienced jam maker.

Seal the jars and process them in boiling water or a pressure cooker until your fears of botulism are relieved.

Krusteaz is Great!

Krusteaz pancake mix is amazing. You just add water!

For breakfast last weekend, I diluted some Krusteaz batter with soy milk and eggs until it was quite thin--and all of the sudden I had Swedish pancakes (sort 0f).

Served with the sweetest little organic strawberries money can buy.

A Recent Farmer's Market Visit

Farmer's Market? Farmers Market? Farmers' Market? Any copyediting experts out there? Or even some copy editing experts?

Put the Sauce Underneath!

I get tired of putting sauce on the top of pasta. This time, I put the sauce underneath.


The sauce is tomato-saffron. The pasta includes garlic, parmesan and breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs in pasta are my new favorite trick: just saute them in olive oil until they are browned, then add garlic.

Wood Fired Oven

This is my dad's new home made wood fired oven. When I went home earlier this month, we cooked pizzas.














The oven gets very hot:














You get your toppings ready:














You roll out your dough:


















Ready to go!














There it goes, into the oven...














Mmm, that looks good!