Langdon Cook's Blog, page 24

The Mushroom Camp

In late September, with my friend Beedle (of Fat of the Land fame) at the wheel, I rode shotgun on a long drive up to northwest British Columbia to go steelheading (more on that in a future post). We camped on the banks of the Kispiox, tributary to the Skeena, and sure enough the first big rainstorm of the season blew out the entire system just a few days after our arrival. So much for fishing.

Game Hen with Chanterelles & Madeira over Parsnip Puree

I had dinner at Tilth the other night in Seattle, owned by award-winning chef Maria Hines. One of the standouts of the evening was a small plate of pan-fried poussin. The chef de cuisine, Larkin Young, came out and told us just how he liked to cook the bird (finishing it with a nob of sizzling butter was key, he explained), and then, as we got to talking about mushroom hunting, it occurred to me

The Transaction

On Saturday I joined Doug and his friend Jeff for another day of picking.

Hanging out with this pair reminded me of the sort of male camaraderie that develops in close quarters. You'll find it in school dormitories, on fishing boats, in hunting camps. Old pals, they knew each other's foibles and weaknesses all too well and exploited them in an ongoing banter of inside jokes, ragging, and general

The Picker

Doug makes his living as a full-time, year-round mushroom picker. He picks the Washington Coast near his Westport home in the fall, travels south to pick California in the winter, and marches back up the east slope of the Cascades following the spring pick, sometimes up into British Columbia if the pick is good.

The other day I tagged along with Doug to see how it was done.



To say Doug is an

Porcini 101: Porcini Risotto

It's fall porcini time in the Pacific Northwest. This is perhaps my favorite of all the wild mushrooms. The season is late this year because of a lack of moisture in August. I found just two porcini while backpacking over Labor Day, but they were prime specimens, perfect for risotto.

After scouring the Web for risotto recipes the other day I got the impression that home cooks might appreciate a

Into the Elwha

Say wha'? The Elwha River Valley, on the north end of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. 
Last week I backpacked into the Elwha Basin in Olympic National Park to see the place before it undergoes profound change next year. You see, in 2011 the process of undamming the Elwha will begin in earnest and five species of Pacific salmon will have a chance to re-colonize a river that historically

Huckleberry Streusel Coffee Cake

Congratulations to Lorna Yee over at The Cookbook Chronicles for winning my first ever recipe contest with her truly decadent Huckleberry Streusel Coffee Cake. You might recall I posted the call to action way back in February after tiring of the usual ho-hum Huckle Buckle.

The judges included everyone in my immediate household, and while we sampled lots of delicious coffee cakes that did donuts

Batty

Maybe this is one of those had to be there moments but I can't resist sharing this short video with you all. The past two weeks of cabin-sitting a friend's place off the grid in the remote Rogue River Canyon of southwestern Oregon was mostly a quiet affair, a vacation away from cell phones, laptops, blogging, Twitter, and the rest of the plugged-in foofaraws. 
Instead we basked in that rare

First Brookie on the Fly

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly his first. Last year Riley hooked and caught a brookie on the fly with help from his dad. But this year the kid decided nine years old was about the right age to pick up a fly rod unaided, and who am I to argue? It will be sad to finally say goodbye to the Scooby-Do rod—we've had some good times with that stalwart member of our family angling arsenal. Riley caught

Angel Dust

You hear the same old quote repeated endlessly about fennel pollen, something about the sprinkling of spice from the wings of angels. Let's just call it angel dust. You remember that stuff from late-night cop movies—a drug that made users goofy and totally out of their heads. Like truffles, saffron, and a handful of other exotic, pricey, and painstakingly harvested goodies, fennel pollen enjoys