Recent Posts

Preserving Lemons

Preserved lemons are not just the province of Morocco. Methods of preserving or pickling lemons exist wherever they are grown, including 19th century America.

Swedish Meatballs – Yeah, Baby! Yeah!

What could be better than authentic Swedish meatballs? Authentic Swedish meatballs made with moose meat and sauced with highbush cranberries and cream, that’s what.

Grasping the Nettle

Stinging nettles are coming into season here in California, so it’s time to play with the Weed That Bites. Nettle pasta, anyone? How about nettle pesto or nettle ravioli?

‘Trash’ Ducks and the Perfect Meatball

How to make the quintessential Italian meatball, from any meat – including some wild ducks and geese not normally known for good eating. It’s all in the method…

Rainy Days and Braised Shanks

Nothing like a nasty winter rainstorm to get me braising meats — in this case a Portuguese style braised venison shank, with fresh nettles and celery root puree mixed with mascarpone cheese.

Acorn Pasta and the Mechanics of Eating Acorns

Everything you need to know using acorns for food. When to collect, what kind of oaks are best, how to leach out the bitter tannins, how to store the acorns, make acorn flour – and acorn flour pasta.

The New Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

As you can by now see, there are big changes happening here at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. I’ve decided to become a wholly owned subsidiary of ConAgra and Nabisco and start writing solely about how much I love processed food. Or not.

Seriously, I’ve decided to spruce up the place to make it easier to move around in. The biggest change is in how you will be able to find things here at HAGC…

Hunting & Fishing Stories

My First Steelhead

I’ve always read about steelhead trout, about how they were mystical, elusive forces of nature that, once you catch one, you will be forever addicted to the pursuit of them. Now that I’ve caught three, I wish I could say I understood all the fuss.
I can’t. I am not transported to the astral plane having [...]

Greek

How to Cure Green Olives

Year after year in my new home here in Northern California, I feel myself sinking down roots and developing new traditions. One of them is curing my own olives, which begins for me in early October.
On some crisp autumn day, I will head out into one of the many public parks near my home that [...]

Fish

How to Make Caviar

Caviar has always had a hold on me. It is a mysterious ingredient, almost otherworldy; the individual eggs look like jewels from an alien planet. Caviar tastes briny and vaguely floral, and the textural surprise of the pop in your mouth has led more than one writer to liken it to Pop Rocks for adults.
I’ve eaten [...]

Charcuterie

Making Hmong Sausages

The first time I ever saw a Hmong person was at the farmers market around the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, many years ago. I was a young line cook at the time, and I gawked at the garishly bright clothes they put their children in. They did not look like any Vietnamese I’d ever met, [...]

Japanese

Cooking with Matsutake Mushrooms

After having never even knowing of their existence for the first 30 years of my life, I’ve recently been cooking with matsutake mushrooms a lot. I got a great price on a batch from Oregon, and I’d already bought some dried ones. After cooking with them fresh and dried for several weeks, I now feel qualified [...]

Wine

Making Wine and Riding the Dragon

Have you ever walked in the kind of fog where you cannot see your own outstretched hand one moment, only for the breeze to shift in the next, leaving you standing in the blinding sun? This is winemaking — a shifting series of revelations clouded by conundra.
As I enter my third Crush, a vineyard double entendre for the [...]

Out & About

King for a Day – The Great Duck Off

The Great Duck Off between Grange head chef Michael Tuohy and me is over, and chef was declared the winner — thanks to a masterful warm rillette he served with a pomegranate-persimmon salad, a dish declared the best of the day by the four judges: Sacramento Bee reporters Rick Kushman and Niesha Lofing, California Waterfowl [...]