Langdon Cook's Blog, page 9

This Tuesday, September 10

Friends and readers, the publication of my new book, The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, is just around the corner. Good things are brewing. Publishers Weekly calls it "intrepid and inspired," The Daily Beast named it a "Hot Read," and both Amazon.com and Apple picked it as one of the Top 10 Best Books of September. The Seattle Times reviewed it this past Friday, with

New at Huffington Post

I've started blogging for the Huffington Post. You can read my first article here, and catch a glimpse of a couple characters who star in my new book.

The article begins:

In early August I got a call from a producer for the PBS TV series Food Forward. He had seen a review copy of my new book, The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, and wanted to film itinerant mushroom

Know Your Vacciniums

Fly fishermen like to joke about PhD trout and poindexter anglers crawling the banks spouting Latin. On first blush it may seem pretentious to be holding a trout rod in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, while reeling off the taxonomic names of various species of Baetis and Pteronarcys. But the truth is, the fly fisherman who has an understanding of entomology has a cast up on the

Merry Pinkmas!

I wrote about the Pink Invasion in the July issue of Seattle Magazine. Truth be told, since that article first appeared I've been too busy fishing for pinks to do much blogging. Fishing...and filleting, brining, and smoking. Repeat. My freezer is rapidly accumulating a two-year supply of smoked salmon.

This is a fishery that hardly existed a generation ago in Puget Sound. As such, in this age

Wild Red Raspberry

Each summer we visit family in the Colorado Rockies, where it's tradition to kick off the trip with a walk up to the same overlook, a place we dubbed the "Bear's Lair" more than a decade ago after spooking a bear from its fern-matted day bed nearby.

The route to the Bear's Lair follows an old hunter's jeep track up a ridge through oak scrub and aspen glades, finally topping out on a knoll

Of Grays and Greenies

The first day I visited the burn, in early June, there wasn't a car in sight. The fire had burned right down to the logging road and a trailhead was marked off with police tape. Signs warned of falling trees and other dangers. We could see the morels before getting out of the car.

Over the next week or two a few other pickers trickled in. To the south, a large, well-publicized burn was taking

Big Fall Books Preview

My new book The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America has been included as an Editor's Pick in Amazon's Big Fall Books Preview. Scroll down to read editor Jon Foro's review. He calls it "a ton of fun—equal parts adventure, natural history, and gastronomy." Foro adds: "Naturalists (who aren’t necessarily foodies) will learn about some of the more exotic fungi and their uses on

Summer Berries

The hot dry weather in the Pacific Northwest has pushed the berry season along at a rapid clip. It looks like the red huckleberries have already peaked through much of the lowlands around Puget Sound, with our native blackberries close behind.



On Sunday I took a class berry-picking on Bainbridge Island. Whereas two years ago on the same date we had bushes overflowing with red huckleberries

Crazy for Conifers

When beginner mushroom hunters ask me how to find fungi, I have two answers. First, join a mycological society and go on a foray; there's no substitute for spending time in the field with a seasoned pro. The second answer might be more surprising: learn your trees.

Experienced mushroom hunters in southwestern Oregon and northern California know the many culinary treats that hide among roots of

Saskatoon Berry Sauce

In eastern Washington, wild Saskatoons (Amelanchier alnifolia)—aka western serviceberry, shadbush, and juneberry—grow near the extensive orchards of cherries, apples, and pears that follow the river valleys. The Wenatchee River corridor near Leavenworth is loaded with Saskatoons, and it's interesting to see how this free food is all but ignored while the domesticated fruit trees are bombed with