Langdon Cook's Blog, page 22

New in Paperback!

I'm pleased to announce that my book, Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, is now out in paperback. You can buy a copy at all the usual places: Amazon, Powell's, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore.

Quotes & Reviews: 

"Once in a while a book crosses my desk that gives me pause, and once in a very great while a book will resonate with me in such a way that it becomes part

Wild Indian: Stinging Nettle Paneer & Porcini Chana Masala

Sometimes a kitchen experiment yields better results than you ever imagined, and you feel like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein. Happily, my recent creation neither ran amok through the neighborhood nor incited a pitchfork mob—though it did get a wild applause from my dinner guests.

I'm talking about my Stinging Nettle Paneer. The dreaded stinging nettle, as most of us have known since

My New Column!

In their infinite wisdom—or maybe a moment of deadline and coffee-induced weakness—the editorial folks at Seattle Magazine have handed over a few column inches to this here foraging scribbler. It's called...drumroll..."Cook's Adventures." Every other issue I'll be taking readers on a jaunt to some of my favorite outdoor grocery stores to sample the wild foods therein.

For the inaugural column we

Winter Pick

A month doesn't go by on the mushroom trail without some variety of fungi getting picked, packed, and sent to market. Between Alaska and California, you can harvest wild mushrooms virtually any day of the year. Itinerant circuit pickers, though a far cry from snowbird retirees in white shoes, operate on a similar premise: they move south in the coldest months, calling Northern California's mild

Northern California: From Woods to Plate

Dear Bay Area Readers: Next week I'll be visiting your neck of the woods to give a couple talks on wild mushroom cookery. I'll be speaking (and showing slides) at the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz on Wednesday, February 16,  and again the following night, Thursday, February 17, at the Bay Area Mycological Society in Berkeley. Come on by and say hello.

Field Trips and Workshops

In upcoming months I'll be teaching a variety of classes on foraging, cooking, and writing in the Puget Sound region. One day maybe I'll get organized enough to send out a newsletter to those of you interested in such classes. In the meantime, check back here on the blog periodically to see what's being offered. I'll post dates in the right column.

In an exciting new collaboration I'll be

What's up, Doc?

Some of you might be wondering what happened to all the hunting talk. After all, I took Washington State's Hunter Education class and even went scouting and trap shooting with a friend of mine.

Since then I've also visited my brother-in-law in Arkansas to go squirrel hunting. I had high hopes of making this Squirrel Gumbo.

So what happened?

Well, for one thing, I got skunked. Seems those

No Shrimp

Are you sick of my mushroom posts yet? Here's a change of scenery: Snowbird Central, the southern Gulf Coast of Florida. This is the only truly tropical corner of the continental U.S., where white shoes and blue hair are the norm.

We went to visit the rellies, but the fish called, so we took a flyer and booked a half-day trip as a Christmas gift to ourselves. Guided fishing ain't cheap. Yet when

Down the Rabbit Hole with David Arora, Part 2

It's no secret that I enjoy spending time with "the mushroom people." (Think 1950s sci-fi flick, with a menacing invasion of creatures who fail to conform to the American standard of ignorant mall-walker.) Many of the mushroom people I know, while being a diverse lot overall, share a few similar traits in common. They like to tromp around all day in the outdoors. By night they're in their

Down the Rabbit Hole with David Arora, Part 1

"Whhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww..." That's the sound of me chasing the White Rabbit.

And there before me, with a Cheshire Cat grin, is my bespectacled host, holding a platter of not-your-everyday food steaming in the kitchen of the Albion Biological Field Station.

Any trip to Mendocino County can feel like something dreamed up by Lewis Carroll, but when it involves a half-dozen or more