Hunting, Harvesting, and Having Fun in the Heather

I had the honor of giving an hour-long invited guest lecture at Sacramento's Freedive Shop the other day. The subject was a lifetime of foraging. Putting together the presentation was almost as fun as giving the talk and receiving such positive feedback! As I assembled my talk, my mom was going through old family photos and sending me scans of some great old memories of fishing, hunting, and gathering all the way back to the beginning!

Right after the presentation I got out for a late afternoon rabbit hunt. It was beautiful out and the hunting was quite productive.

The next day as my rabbit simmered away in the crockpot I headed out on the water in my canoe (aka. the aluminum monster) with a couple of pirates I know. Luckily, my buddy Captain Santi allowed Elizabeth come along as first mate.

The fish were not biting, but there was plenty of good rabbit in the pot back home. Paired with wild mustard greens and an oyster mushroom I came across while hunting, the stew and meat pies were incredible!

Foraging this morning with my friend Kerry was also quite productive...though the oyster mushrooms were few and far between.

Abalone slept well after her adventures in the field.

Kerry cooked up some wild raddish greens with ramen for dinner...

while I cooked up some of the wild radish greens and nettle greens in a rabbit curry...

but the past few nights have yielded some pretty good meals and snacks as well.

I made ceviche again from the last of the fish that Evian and I speared on the Channel Islands last weekend.

And my dad caught a nice steelhead with my brother the other day on the river! He smoked the fillets, as did our buddy Eric. I got to take a fillet of Eric's smoked steelhead home...such a nice snack when paired with crackers and green onion cream cheese!

Well, it's officially Spring Break and my brother and dad have been reporting good catches of Dungeness Crab on the coast (now that the season is finally open). I've been waiting for crab season for months, so I am hoping to get out there soon. Maybe I will have a new story for you soon!

Keep the old ways alive!