Langdon Cook's Blog, page 27

Sea Scallops with Maple Blossom Pesto, Morels & Asparagus

I missed the lowland blossoming of big-leaf maples, but now that it's morel time in the foothills I get another crack at the floral, slightly sweet blossoms. Maple blossoms can be added to salads, sautéed, or even used to make pesto. I blended equal portions of maple blossom and fresh mint from the garden to make this simple pesto. The rest of the ingredients are standard. Adjust as you see fit.

Hangtown Fry

The old mining town of Placerville, California, was dubbed Hangtown back in the mid-1800s after a trio of outlaws met their end on the same day and in the same oak tree. Legend has it that not long after that a Forty-niner who finally hit paydirt took his diggings into a local saloon and demanded the most expensive meal in town. The cook picked his three dearest ingredients—fresh eggs carefully

And so it begins...

Here in the upper lefthand corner of the country we have to endure weeks of hearing about everyone else's spectacular morel mushroom finds before we get a taste of our own. The flush usually begins in the southeast around Georgia in March, then spreads north and west from there, up into the Carolinas and across the lower Mississippi states of Arkansas and Missouri and into the Midwest. By the

Drunken Midgets Loose on the Flats

I know I've been posting a lot of shellfish recipes lately. What can I say? We're in the homestretch. Most shellfish are currently piling on the fat so they can be ready for the spawning season, which generally coincides with warming water temperatures. And fat equals flavor. Let's say that again, class. Fat equals flavor. (I feel like the tie-dyed teacher on South Park.) Once on the spawn,

Sichuan Dry-fried Chicken with Fiddleheads

Sichuan cuisine makes sense in Seattle. It rains here. It's gray, with chilly winds blowing in off the Sound to dampen our days. The warm flavors of Sichuan transport us to a more tropical climate. The spiciness jolts us out of our somnolence. The other day I went to my boy's first track meet. This spring he decided he would rather run than play baseball. The meet was chaotic, bleachers groaning

Dandelion Jelly

After reading Ava Chin's Urban Forager column in the New York Times the other day I was inspired to make Dandelion Jelly. This has been in the back of my mind for a while but I always seem to have some other use for the hard-won yellow petals: bread or muffins or wine. And it's not like one just has flowers to burn (despite what my neighbors think about my "lawn"). Harvesting the petals is

A Dandy Day in the Neighborhood

This post is featured in Volume 7 of the Good Life Report. Subscribe here.Ray Bradbury famously waxed nostalgic about his family's love of dandelion wine. The story first appeared in Gourmet magazine and conjured a mostly lost bucolic America where everyone owned a wine press and the hated weed of today was thought of in much gentler terms. Bottled sunshine he called the tonic they made in the

Laksa: One Word, One Pot, One Heckuva Meal

Ten years ago Marty and I traveled to Borneo, with stops in mainland Malaysia and Singapore. In addition to trekking through primeval rainforest, watching a pageant of colorful songbirds from high up in the canopy, and hanging out with endangered orangutans in their diminishing habitat, we also ate bowlfuls of the region's signature one-pot meal.Laksa is thought to be the centuries-old creation

Steamed Clams in Herbed Wine Sauce

Budget travel need not be an endless repetition of stale motels and dubious road food. One of the great pleasures of learning how to forage is finding a noteworthy meal far from home and for little expense. Earlier this month I reported on the White Bass Tacos to be had near Fayetteville, Arkansas. Last summer, in Utah's Dinosaur National Monument, we doctored ham and cheese sandwiches with wild

Fiddlehead Frittata

On the trail the other day I came upon an elderly Korean couple with full bags of fiddleheads and devil's club buds. They looked a little guilty clutching their haul, probably because the rules about foraging in state parks are ambiguous and rarely posted, and my interest might have struck them as of a vaguely law enforcement nature. Then I emptied my pockets and revealed my own small stash of