Maybe it’s because of the name — chanterelle — that I always assumed these wild mushrooms were exclusively a California thing. Surely such a frou frou term couldn’t describe anything growing in the meat-and-potatoes midwest, where you might more expect something hardier, say a beefsteak (which, incidentally, doesn’t seem to grow in the Midwest. But I digress). My brother Mike, who lives in California, basically assumed the same, until a week ago when, while wandering the family land in northern lower Michigan, he happened upon a handful of the unmistakable orange fungi. As soon as Martha and I got wind of his discovery, the three of us headed back out into the woods and the hunt was on.

While not a party to the fungiphobia that so infects most of our country (and about half of my family), my wild mushroom gathering experience is limited to the mighty morel, a mushroom which — even when plentiful — does a good job of disguising itself on the forest floor. I am convinced that it is in fact invisible to the direct line of sight, appearing only in one’s peripheral vision. What a relief to hunt the chanterelle, then, which is not nearly so cagey; its bright orange yellow stands in strong contrast to the forest around it. Provided there actually are chanterelles where one is looking, there’s little risk of not seeing them.

And chanterelles there were. We must have hit their seasonal peak (our mushroom guide unhelpfully identified the season for chanterelles as “summer and fall”) because it seemed like every 15 feet or so we would walk on the hill crest, someone would spot a new group of the golden mushrooms poking through the ferns and grass. Mike — the experienced mycologist in the group — soon developed a theory that the chanterelles were somehow connected to maple trees. I remained a little dubious, largely due to my inability to consistently identify said trees (yes, I have trouble identifying maple trees).

Whether or not we cracked the code of chanterelle growth, we sure found a bunch of them. There was no scale available, but the bag I was carrying felt like it contained two, maybe even three, pounds of mushrooms.

Dumping that bag on to the kitchen table, the most impressive thing beyond the sheer quantity of fungus was the aroma: it was as if someone had cut open an apricot right under our noses. Mike said this aroma is not as strong in the California chanterelles he has found; this being my first chanterelle experience, I couldn’t make comparisons, but I did find the aroma striking for its pleasantness — none of the mustiness I usually associate with wild mushrooms.

Given my inexperience, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with our chanterelle bonanza in the kitchen. We decided on two approaches: the larger chanterelles would be sliced and grilled, while the smaller ones would be quartered or kept whole and sauteed with olive oil, garlic, and chicken broth to make a kind of mushroom sauce/side dish.

But before any of that could be attempted, the chanterelles would need to be cleaned. The fluted gills running up the sides of these mushrooms are adept at catching dirt, and the bases of their stems won’t ever shed it no matter how much you wash. Mike showed us a technique for getting the bases of the stems clean, using a paring knife to shave off the layers of dirt.

The chanterelles were fun to cook with; their meaty, solid stems were firm under my knife, not delicate in the way of hollow-stemmed morels (note: if your morel doesn’t have a hollow stem, you might just have a verpa. Don’t eat it.) In spite of  the vast quantities of liquid the mushrooms gave up as they cooked — liquid which frustrated my plans to brown the mushrooms and deglaze with chicken broth — they remained substantial in the finished dishes, only a little diminished in size. Their flavor was like their smell, hinting of apricots but with a unique woodland taste. Both the grilled and sauteed chanterelles made perfect accompaniments for venison harvested from the same land by my other brother, Kevin.

I’m sure the presence of wild chanterelles in the forests of the upper midwest is old news to the seasoned foragers out there, but for a greenhorn like myself the discovery was pretty exciting: a new bounty to harvest from the woods! Now I just need to find some good mushrooming land in Minnesota.

“OH MY GOD, A MOREL!” I cried, after having given up the search and nearly abandoning the woods. Tom, a more seasoned mushroomer, hissed for me to, ”Keep it down.” While it’s likely obvious, I have only been out looking for mushrooms, or mushrooming, once before (twice if you count our hike in Muir Woods outside San Francisco), and I’m not yet very well versed in the caginess of mushroom hunters. I will, however, not mention exactly where we went yesterday or reveal where our tip came from—even foragers-in-training have to protect the secrets of the woods.

After seeing morels for sale at the Midtown Farmers Market ($10/basket) and the Wedge Coop ($40/pound), I got an itch to go hunting for our own. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend the money: morels are expensive, but so is gas and fruitless hours spent wandering the woods. Yesterday’s adventure added up to two hours of driving time (there and back) and an additional two or more hours to find two ounces of mushrooms, which could have been had for a mere $5.

But all experiences should not be reduced to such crude economic calculations. An afternoon started with a good lunch of rye Real Bread, a package of Gardens of Eagan strawberries, hummus, and cheese followed by a ramble through the astonishingly green Minnesota woodlands cannot be so easily valued. For the most part we stuck to trails. Only two of our morels were found off the trail, while we spotted five (yes, that’s a total of seven) without leaving the trail at all.

All of our finds occurred after we’d completely given up (which we did four times) and insisted that the season was over, it was hopeless, and we might as well quit looking. Mushrooming is sort of like trying to remember something and focusing too hard, causing all memory to be blocked and much suffering from “It’s on the tip of my tongue” until several hours later, when you’ve completely forgotten about remembering and everyone else has gone home and the very thing comes to mind with ease.

Satisfied with our seven mushrooms in tow, and feeling a bit tired after a couple of hours staring intently to the left and right, we climbed into the car to head back to Minneapolis. Just as Tom, who offered to drive home, was pulling out of the parking area, a man walked by with what I insist was a football-sized morel in the crook of his arm. “OH MY GOD,” I yelled, out my open window. Tom, now thoroughly embarrassed, hushed me once more saying, “You can’t just yell ‘OH MY GOD’ at someone out the window!” and continued driving out of the lot. And so I have no picture, but perhaps that is best. We wouldn’t want to reveal too much.

In most cases, you won’t even notice the difference substituting ramps for green onions. One of Martha and my favorite dishes is a “Mexican Caesar Salad” (which comes from [cough] the Chevy’s & Rio Bravo FreshMex Cookbook; also, Mexican caesar salad? Where does caesar salad come from?) that combines green onions with cilantro, garlic, mayonnaise, anchovies and lime juice. I’d like to say that my sensitive palate picked up the extra grassy notes contributed by the ramps, but up against flavors like those they don’t stand a chance. Possibly a waste of good ramps, but on the other hand if you happened into a wild ramp bonanza and have more ramps than you know what to do with, this is not a bad way to use a few.

But what if you want the flavor of the raw ramps to stand out more? One of the best ways I know to highlight the flavors of fresh raw vegetables is spring rolls; what could be more spring-like than the flavor of fresh veggies rolled together with bean threads in a rice paper wrapper? Nothing, that’s what. Besides thinly-sliced ramps, I rolled in carrots, jalapeños, mint, cilantro, bean threads and cilantro chicken sausage from The Wedge. As the only onion the ramps contributed a distinct pungency but were balanced by the other flavors.

To some people, the idea of eating raw ramps —no matter what they’re balanced with — would seem barbaric. Ramps can be cooked too! They are excellent with eggs; I sautéed some thinly sliced ramps in butter until they were just starting to brown before stirring in a few eggs and queso fresco to make a frittata. With only mild cheese and eggs to stand in their way this was the best dish I’ve made recently for showcasing the unique flavor of ramps. They’d also  make a fine substitute for chives in topping scrambled eggs.

The challenge with ramps is that their timing — far and away the first vegetables of spring — makes them feel like they should be  treated with a special reverence. But hey, they’re just onions. By using ramps as a more everyday ingredient, I was able to taste them in unexpected ways.

Loving garlic as much as I do — and I love garlic — I was briefly in heaven when I discovered at a Lebanese restaurant in Cairo a dip called thoumiya. The name presumably derives from the Arabic thoum (ثوم), which means garlic, and this dip was all about garlic — almost pure garlic, touched with lemon juice and beaten into a fluffy cloud of ecstasy.

As you can tell, I departed the Middle East with no small amount of enthusiasm for this dish. Imagine my dismay when I found no mention of it in any Middle Eastern cookbooks, and could find no information on the Internet (perhaps owing to transliteration difficulties). It was as if I had imagined the whole thing, or perhaps been tricked by a djinn.

Or so I thought, until today, when on routine provisioning trip to Kowalski’s I saw glowing out from the shelf like a red and white beacon the words “Garlic Supreme”. One look at the texture and color and I knew I had finally found that magical sauce from of my memories, courtesy of the St. Paul Flatbread Co. The first thing I did upon returning home — before even putting the groceries away — was crack this open and I was immediately transported; it was perfect, lemony, light, and above all garlicky.

It would be more in the spirit of this blog for me to post a recipe for a homemade version — and I suppose I will probably do that one day — but for the moment I am happy that I can have a small piece of heaven for just $3.99.

Let me start by saying I don’t like squash. I kind of hate it. It’s certainly not an aesthetic objection: nothing brightens up the drear of the fall farmers’ market quite like all the whimsical varieties of winter squash — impossible to resist! This combination of compulsive buying and strong dislike leads me to accumulate squash in the fall. Earlier this month, our squash collection reached critical mass and it was time for desperate measures. And so the idea was born: the week of squash. We would cook and eat a different squash each day for five days. At the end of the week, we would have finished our kuri, delicata, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes. And I would either have learned to love squash or never need to eat it again.

Day 1 Curried Kuri Squash Soup

Not wanting to be too ambitious the first day, I went for an old standard: squash soup. Most of the versions of this I’ve had are sweetened with brown sugar and pretty fatiguing after just a few spoonfuls. To try to make it a little more interesting, I attempted squash mulligatawny; a squash-based version of the citrusy Angl0-Indian soup. After peeling and steaming my kuri squash, I pureed the flesh with some of the steaming liquid, and added ginger and curry powder. Back in the pot, I added a bit of cream and some lime juice. For garnish, I made a mint-cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce, dolloped generously in the center

Squash Hatred Level: 6. The squash was pretty passable, but I think I was a little too heavy-handed with the lime juice; the soup was overly sour. The yogurt sauce helped improve the soup’s flavor, but as is often the case with squash soup (for me, anyway) a few bites was enough.

Day 2 Delicata Squash Enchiladas

This dish was inspired by a post on Serious Eats and an email I received from my Aunt Ann talking about having made enchiladas using squash with chard, feta and onions. I kind of took the worst parts of both of these ideas, ignoring their saving graces, and added some even nastier elements. So my ‘enchiladas’ contained: roasted delicata squash, kale, never-tender-enough-sauteed chard stems, charred red peppers and onions, and cilantro. After preparing my fillings and tossing them in a bowl with the recommended enchilada sauce, I rolled enchiladas, topped them with more sauce and covered the dish with a healthy (or hopefully unhealthy) dose of pepper-jack and put it in the oven to bake.

Squash Hatred Level: 8. The squash soup was not good, but it was okay. These enchiladas, on the other hand, were just nasty. Even as I was putting the recipe together, I could feel the train-wreck beginning. Eliminating the black beans and the feta was obviously a mistake. And in my overzealous cleaning of the crisper drawer I didn’t think about why combining kale and chard stems was a terrible, terrible idea. The only salvation for this dish would have been a lot more sauce and/or a lot more cheese, and preferably just those things. At this point I was getting pretty discouraged about squash week.

Day 3 Stuffed Roast Acorn Squash

With exotic reimaginings of squash having utterly failed me in the beginning of the week, it was time to turn to a stand-by. Growing up, this was how I knew squash: an acorn squash, cut in half, stuffed with pork sausage, and roasted until both were nicely browned. Of course, as a child, I would only eat the sausage, though I did eventually learn to also eat the squash, provided it was mashed together with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 6. This is actually a very good way to enjoy squash: pork loves a sweet compliment and finds a great one in the flesh of the squash, and the pork fat mingled tantalizingly with the squash. I hardly needed any butter at all!

Day 4 Spaghetti Squash and Broccoli Gratin

I suppose the star of this meal is actually in the background of the above photo: slow-cooked duck legs with a red wine pan sauce. But squash is the point of this post, and squash we did have to the side of our duck. For this gratin, I combined the flesh of a roasted spaghetti squash with steamed broccoli and a generous handful of New Zealand cheddar cheese in a buttered gratin dish. I topped the mixture off with bread crumbs tossed together with parmesan cheese and baked the dish until the breadcrumbs were brown and the cheese bubbly.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 4. This dish had a good level of sweetness without descending into sweet potato pie territory, and the combination of textures — the still slightly crisp broccoli, the gooey squash and cheese, and the crunchy breadcrumbs — was interesting and pleasant.

Day 5 Butternut Squash Spaetzle

I kind of dread butternut squash because it is so popular and tends to get so repetitive. How many butternut squash raviolis have you seen on restaurant menus in the past five years? So I was very grateful when Serious Eats featured a recipe for butternut squash spaetzle. I mean, I have long wanted to learn to make spaetzle, and if I could liven up squash week in the process, all the better. I also thought the recipe an appropriate wrap-up to squash week, since squash figures into the spaetzle dough as well as being a part of the sauce (I guess the ultimate wrap-up to squash week would have involved all five squash varieties in some kind of squash explosion but even contemplating that makes me a little sick). The recipe was pretty easy to follow; I only screwed up in over-cooking the maple glaze to the point where it wasn’t so much a maple glaze as maple candy. Luckily, the dishes were for Martha.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 8. This dish did a really good job of using the sweetness of butternut squash as an accent while bringing in a variety of other flavors and textures to avoid palate fatigue. Although recommended as a side dish, it made a great light lunch on a fall day.

And so the week of squash ended. Although it wasn’t planned this way, after a couple of rocky starts the meals got progressively better; by the end of the week I could even say I almost liked squash. I suppose I will be able to eat it in the future. But five days in a row again? Probably not.

Wishfully thinking about pizza possibilities, I decided there was no choice but to pickle these babies. Tom was busy making dinner, so this had to be a Martha project. As Tom pointed out, a one-quart Ball jar wasn’t going to work for two lonely peppers. Not wanting to give up for lack of a not-too-big jar, I dug a Bonne Maman jam jar out of the recycling and set to slicing:

• 2 banana peppers, seeded and sliced into rings

Once I had the peppers sliced, I stuffed them into the jar.

For my pint-sized jar I needed a little under a cup of pickling juice. First question. What goes into the jars? (I guess I should have read this post a little more closely.) Tom normally uses two parts vinegar to one part water with 2 tablespoons of salt and adds sugar as applicable. Working with a small jar, I upped the vinegar a bit and brought down the salt:

• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar

With these four ingredients combined in a small pot over high heat, I opened the spice cupboard and asked a few more questions. Tom had advice for the pickling spices: garlic and mustard seeds were a must, and I offered up a bay leaf and red pepper flakes—then thought better of it—and opted for whole dried chiles instead.

• 2 small garlic cloves, smashed
• Pinch of mustard seeds (black, yellow, or both)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1–2 dried chiles, whole (or substitute a spoonful of red pepper flakes)

The next step is to add the pickling spices and garlic to the jar of peppers. Once the vinegar mixture has come to a boil, pour it over the peppers until it reaches the rim of the jar.

Done! Now our soon-to-be-pickles need to cool. After the jar and contents hit room temperature, cover, refrigerate, and enjoy in a day or two… preferably on pizza.

I cut into the apple with great expectation and was rewarded with a hearty crunching sound as blades pushed through crisp apple flesh. And then the moment of truth: as I bit into the SweeTango, my mouth was filled with sweet juice. Almost immediately, I started to pucker; the substantial acid was kicking in. This apple really has it all: firm crunchy flesh, lots of juice and a perfect balance of honey sweetness and lemony tartness, both flavors in abundance. Martha, not a fan of apple skin, appreciated that the skin on the SweeTango is thick enough to be noticeable but not so chewy as to remain in your mouth after the rest of the apple has been eaten. The flavor is similar to a honeycrisp with its floral character, but is bolder.

This apple is amazing raw; quite possibly the best apple I have ever eaten. I am guessing it would also be great for baking with its balance of sweet and tart and big flavor. Although I’m not in the pocket of Big Apples, I willingly fall in with all the rest of the hype.

SweeTango apples are $3.99/lb. at Kowalski’s, or about $2/apple.

Last week, Martha came home with exciting stories and delicious bresaola from a butcher shop she found in Linden Hills: Clancey’s Meats and Fish. I had read about the shop on the Heavy Table, but had yet to go. Intrigued, I wanted to check it out. On Saturday after the farmers’ market we biked there. My plan was to buy some fatty pork for carnitas to go with the tomatillos, corn and tomatoes we got from the market, but when I got there there was some goat staring me in the eye, calling my name. Apart from the fact that they actually have goat, the best part about Clancey’s is that from the cuts offered in their cases, it’s clear that they’ve butchered whole animals themselves. The goat’s various parts were all in evidence and arranged together. Think of the supermarket butcher: 50 ribeyes from 50 cows. Although I have never made goat before, as soon as I saw this leg roast all my thoughts of pork went out the window.

The staff of Clancey’s suggested that I cook the goat as I would lamb, although better to braise it than to roast it medium-rare, which is my lamb-preference. I couldn’t really shake my carnitas idea, so goat carnitas it was. I was kind of surprised that Diana Kennedy’s The Art of Mexican Cooking contained not a single recipe for goat since I assumed for some reason that  goat was popular in Mexico. None of my other cookbooks were much help either, so I decided to wing it. I rubbed the roast down in a vaguely Mexican way (cumin, oregano, chile powder, black pepper, salt) and seared it. In went orange juice, lime juice, garlic and onions and then the pot into a 250° oven for a long, slow cook.

Of course, these goat carnitas were going to require some delicious fixins, and luckily the farmers’ market was able to provide. I used the most beautiful tomatillos of my life to make a salsa verde (with cilantro, garlic, onion and some lime juice). Martha used the first sweet corn and tomatoes of the season with cilantro, lime juice and green onions to make a corn salsa.

After three hours in the oven, the goat was tender but not falling apart. I pulled it to shreds with two forks. At this point I became a little concerned as I was hit with a smell that can only be described as “goaty.” Tasting the meat was reassuring; it was a bit like lamb and a bit like beef, with a deep flavor and very tender texture. I tossed it with a little of the salsa verde for color.

Maybe a taco is not the best way to appreciate the flavor of goat, but it’s not a bad way to eat goat. In fact, the acid of the salsas and sour cream cut through some of the meat’s earthiness. By the end of my third taco, my eyes were craving a fourth and my stomach was saying “no!” As usual, the eyes won out.

As in ’08, we headed for Mother Earth Gardens, where we originally purchased our window box and plants last year:

At Mother Earth Gardens we strive to provide you with beautiful plants and products, but a central part of our mission is also to choose plants and products that have been grown, produced and delivered in a sustainable manner. We talk about the following words in our buying and decision-making: organic, sustainable, local, family, independently and cooperatively owned.

Luckily, tarragon is an perennial. It came back all on its own:

On May 3 we planted (or replanted, the case of the tarragon pictured above):

• Oregano
• Spearmint *new*
• Thyme
• Sage
• Chives *new*
• Rosemary
• Tarragon

As of Wednesday, it will be 1 month since planting. I hope to be able to plot our herbs’ progress as the season goes on so that we can both have a record of their growth and share it with you. And, of course, expect to see [Tom's] entries on how we use the herbs in our kitchen.

Finally, I wanted to share a project from the weekend. Below are my newly acquired pots from my favorite Swedish store with extras from the work at Common Roots. We’re now officially out of soil, so I think this will be it for the season. Given that, I’m hoping these two bell peppers and a small crop of tomatillos will produce fruit. Tom, the doubter, isn’t sure we have the sun required. We’ll see. The first victory is that it is possible to water the plants *without* removing the screen (as long as the watering can is full enough).

And at only $2.99/lb, they’re a steal. Well, not quite. Most vegetables entail some amount of waste, and in the case of fava beans it’s a whole lot. The beans are encased in pods, like peas, and then each bean has a thick shell around it that also needs to be removed. 

How much waste is this? The total weight of everything was 9 3/8 oz (although the Wedge charged me for 10 1/4 oz—I wonder whose scale is wrong). The weight of the edible beanswas 1 5/8 oz, while the weight of the pods and shells was 7 7/8 oz (slight discrepancy here due to my scale being accurate only to somewhere more than 1/8 oz). Only 17% of what you buy is edible. $2.99/lb? In terms of food you can actually eat, it’s more like $17.50/lb. Yikes! Such is desperation for at the end of a long winter.

This wouldn’t seem so bad if you could come up with a useful way to employ the pods and shells. Anybody have any ideas?