Gathering Goodies for Gruit: The Story of Antidote Ale

"Come one, come all, taste the salvation of creation. Cures scurvy, snake bites, tuberculosis, and witchcraft! Come try the one and only, Antidote Ale! "-Us joking around about our medicinal brew.

 

 

The first wave of ripe figs were happily harvested the other evening...

 

 

 

And the resulting goat cheese, fig and caramelized onion pizza was a big hit!

 

 



We got out for a little foraging on the north coast the next day. The goal was to gather mugwort and yarrow to use for bittering and Douglass fir needles for aromatics in a small batch of brew we were planning to make. We started above the fog...

 

 

Made our way into the marine layer...

 

 

And watched the sun set through the cool white mist enjoying every moment...

And every breath...

We gathered up our goodies in good time, and added a few fresh blackberries from the vine and the first of the Gravenstein apples from the orchards for a snack...

 
We then decided that it would be a good idea to gather some wild milk thistle seeds to add to the brew (great for the liver), which we roasted and ground with my homemade mortar and pestle...

Our home brew club, Brew North, requires that all brewers wear fancy hats while engaged in the ancient art...

A code even Abalone lives by...

We added the fresh mugwort and yarrow for bittering in a style of gruit (traditional hopless beer that predates the hops trade in northern Europe)...

 

And added the Doug fir boughs for aromatics (reserving a few for a later "dry hopping")...

 

 

Though a true Gruit uses no hops, we added four individual hop cones from the vine that grows out back for good luck...

 

 



 

This joker kept a close watch on the grog...

 

The recipe was experimental, and it showed...

 

 

But after a little cool down in a sink full of dirty cold dish water...

 

Antidote ale was fermenting like a champion!
We'll keep you posted on the outcome.
Keep the old ways alive!

Wood is Good: Foraging for Wood to Carve

"When we were kids if we wanted something we made it!"- Alex Izzarelli reminiscing about our creative childhood.

Ron and I cut up a nice black locust trunk from the banks of a riparian corridor in a deep canyon. He had his buddy rip it into three planks on a band saw after it had seasoned for a few months and we had a look at our foraged tough-as-nails bow staves. 

 

 

The two outer planks are well suited for carving traditional California flat bows; a bow style used extensively by some of our local tribes. The interior plank was not well suited for bow carving as it did not have its original outer layers, which are essential for forming the back of a good self bow. Yet, a good opportunistic forager follows the old creed "waste not, want not." So I set to work on my half of that central plank and in a half hour's time was proud of the result...a very hard black locust spatula.

 

The colors really came out when I coated it with some bees wax

Next I split up an old apple trunk from a fallen tree in the orchard and carved down a unique plate, which we loaded up with ripe blackberries straight of the bush.







Finally, I used another small scrap of  the black locust and fashioned a fork. Now it's time to go put them to use.

Remember, foraging for materials can be as much fun as foraging for food. Bushcraft is truly at the heart of what foraging is all about. And there is no better feeling than gathering blackberries on your own foraged and carved plate, shellfish in your own foraged and woven basket, or hunting with your own foraged and fashioned bow and arrows. By engaging in making your own tools of the trade your connection with the whole experience of foraging and feasting off of the bounties of Earth and sea is expanded and enriched. When the berries aren't in season, you can still have wood seasoning and you can always get carving. No need to buy exotic hardwoods when ash, oak, plum, apple, locust, walnut, and cherry all grow in abundance in the heather. The materials are there, free of charge, beckoning that you come and gather on your next adventure. Keep the old ways alive! 

North Country Forager Feast: Applewood Grilled Wild Salmon, Fuit Salad, Wakame Seaweed Salad, and Grilled Figs

"Naw that's country!"-Alex doing his best hillbilly impression.

On our recent hook and line angling kayak trip, I also gathered up some sea water.

boiled it down...

and made some nice sea salt.

We picked rosemary, chives, basil, oregano and sage from my Mom's garden and made up a batch of forager's best herb salt.

Alex and I gathered up a little elderberry for a nice sauce and some blooms for garnish...

and got the apple wood fire going from scraps from our orchard.

After a bit of target practice, my Mom sliced the first figs from our tree, grilled them with blue cheese and garnished with balsamic vinegar for an exquisite appetizer.

Once we had a decent bed of coals, we placed a batch of garlic bread on the grill (garlic was from my Brother's girlfriend's awesome garden, butter was homemade)...

and then we threw the king salmon my Dad had caught a few days before on the grill as well.

I sent Hunter and Alex out to the orchard to get a few organic heirloom Gravenstein apples and some blackberries for the fruit salad while I sliced up our recently foraged peaches and plums.

Then we reconstituted the Wakame seaweed I had got freediving the day before and whipped up a traditional Asian seaweed salad with some of the shredded carrot from Karen's garden.

My Dad cooked down the elderberries and after dusting the fish with our forager's herb salt, we garnished with elder sauce and elder flowers.

The feast paired well with Dad's homebrew, but we were running low so we spent the last hours of the evening brewing another 10 gallon batch.

Foraging is one step better than shopping locally and eating organically, as each bite of every meal is connected to the joy and adventure that surrounded its acquisition from the Earth and sea where it thrives naturally.

Keep the old ways alive!

Kayak Angling and Fried Lingcod Sandwiches

Hunter

“You know what’s awesome?”-me

“Yup!”-my Dad

“This!”-me

“Sure is!”-my Dad

Hunter and I got out on the Kayak yesterday. The seas were calm

the salmon were running. We paddled out at a cove where the

foggy sky met the stark sandstone bluffs and lush coniferous forest.

Hunter had a lingcod in the boat in around 5 minutes.

Around mid day I brought a 15-20lbs salmon to within a foot of the

 boat, but he threw the hook at the last moment and we watched his

beautiful metallic silver sheen flash one last time as he blasted back

 to the bottom. All we could do was laugh…we wanted that fish,

 but it was pretty darn cool to have even had the opportunity to

fight and see him. I got two more lingcod later in the day which had

 me pretty stoked by the time we paddled in.

Stoked Forager

Really Stoked Successful Forager

Lingcod

That afternoon, my wife and I gathered up a little lambsquarter

from a local orchard while my Mom made German potato salad.

Our dinner was some of the best fried lingcod sandwiches I have

ever tasted. The added lambsquarter greens were also well

received.

Lambsquarter

One-of-a-Kind Dinner!

By the way, blackberries, thimbleberries, and other wild edibles

were also spied on this outing…but more about them later.

Keep the old ways alive!