Worry Stone

I recently re-discovered a beautiful smooth river rock, meant to be a worry stone.  I forgot how soothing and effective it can be to pace back and forth, absently turning the stone over in my hand.  I apparently also forgot what a klutz I was. After the third time dropping the worry stone on my toes, I had quite forgotten whatever my initial woe was.

Early Spring Foraging: Part I

I love the outdoors around the year, but spring and autumn remain my favorite times to wander through the woods. Beyond the particular beauty and fair weather of these seasons, wild edibles abound. 

The excitement of foraging never gets old. Hiking is an inherently cheap activity, and then to be able to produce free food from it makes my thrifty little heart sing. I've also aways wanted to be really woods-savvy, the kind of person who could walk into a forest with nothing more than a pocket knife and survive for weeks on my own. I might not have reached that stage quite yet, but a few times a year I am able to make a tasty meal out of the things I find on my walks. Early spring is not a great time for mushrooms, unless you're lucky enough to spot morels, and I have never been. Here in New England, fiddle heads and ramps are at the top of the spring foraging finds.

A quick disclaimer: Eating the wrong plants and fungus, even in small amounts, can kill you, and in many cases, cooking does not make any difference. This, and any other post on wild found foods is not intended as a reference. There are many sites available on the internet and a large number of books on the subject of foraging. Better yet, find a local expert or foray group to take you out in your area and verify your edibles. 

Fiddle head is the term for the curled frond head of a fern leaf resembling the instrumental part of the same name. Not all ferns are created equal. The species we are interested in, pictured above, is the Ostrich Fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris. The taste of these young ferns is like a nutty green - some compare them favorably to asparagus.

Slightly too-old fiddlehead

The ostrich fern grows in a singular large feathery frond which curls out from the fiddle head. The most distinctive features are the progressively deeper groove on the stalk and the papery brown chaff loosely covering the fiddle head. Cut just below the young, tightly curved fiddle head.

The best part about finding ostrich ferns is their abundance, and relative ease of harvest. The hard part is deciding how much you'll actually be able to eat!

Ramps, or wild leeks, also grow in great bunches. Allium tricoccum is not as quick to spot as the ostrich fern, because its oblong low-lying leaves resemble a number of wild lilies out at the same time - but it is quite a bit easier to confirm. Digging below the leaves reveals a small white bulb, about an inch long.

Neil is excited we have finally found ramps!

The unassuming wild leek is a cousin to the onion, and can be interchanged easily in any recipe that calls for them. It has a pungent odor, something like a cross between garlic, onions, and unwashed gym socks. If you harvest something that does not smell distinctively of onions, its not a ramp. The taste is surprisingly mild and is an excellent accompaniment to soups and stir fries. 

Marianna contemplates alternative uses for the dandelion trowel

You don't need any special equipment to dig ramps, because they tend to be in sandy, wet soil, and pull up after minimal digging around. However, in wild settings, I like to cause as little disturbance as possible to the surrounding environment - so a dandelion trowel is very useful for popping those bulbs out.

A warning about that smell - it's powerful. I wouldn't recommend leaving your newly gathered ramps in confined spaces, like say.. a car or an apartment. I made the mistake of doing both the first time we found them, and was rewarded with enough nausea to almost put me off trying them.

Many thanks to my unwitting foraging models, Neil and Marianna. Tune in next time to find out how I turned these forest finds into actual food!

Introduction

I think there is a certain arrogance required in posting a public blog. A blog is the tangible manifestation of the belief that your thoughts and your ability to express them are so interesting that you need to share them with the world, and then, expect the world to sit up and read them. I don't imagine this is any different than any other author's desire in the history of the written word, but now, anyone with a connection to the internet and something to say can publish it. Housewives, soldiers, twenty-somethings and godless liberals can all meet at the same metaphysical table in this grand "series of tubes," and throw their words at an unwitting public. 

I want in. 

Except...The problem I encounter is that in order to have a blog worth reading, you need to have some sort of topic to revolve around, a subject readers might actually read. To make matters more complicated, to have a blog worth writing -a problem dearer to me than the first- this topic must actually inspire some passion in the author. It was always at this stumbling block that my aspirations to become a blogger withered. 

For the sake of introductions, my name is A.J. I am a college graduate, still -barely- in my first quarter century.  I have a job I enjoy, though it is not my intended career, a long term relationship, and the nebulous beginnings of a plan for the future. I used to think that I would leave college equipped with all the social, academic, and financial skills I would need to transform immediately into an adult. Instead, I left with a degree, a pile of debt, and a lot more questions than answers. 

Lots of bloggers write about their daily lives, and I knew that was not going to be an option.  I keep a personal journal for that kind of mundane detail, and believe me, it IS mundane. I live in quiet, relatively rural New England and I work with a group of surprisingly normal professionals. The healthcare setting that I function in certainly has its quirks, but I don't think I could fill up a whole blog with my impressions of them. My social life is also stable, staid, and bound to be dull to the outsider. 

If not my professional or personal relationships, I thought, what about my hobbies? Hobby bloggers cover every topic from travel to knitting, and beyond. I have hobbies! I enjoy working on so many things all at once: writing, reading, sketching, photography, foraging, science, cooking, hiking, camping, fitness and the list goes on and on and on. My closets are littered with half-finished projects, and maybe it's better to say that I try to have hobbies.

And then, like a bolt of lightening - or perhaps just a very hard whack between the shoulder blades, it hit me. Trying is the story of my life right now. I'm trying to be a professional, trying to cook, trying to be more fit, trying fiscal responsibility, trying to practice good citizenship... trying to find a modest niche for myself in the world that I am content to occupy.

You might notice the discrepancy between my web address and my title. On one hand, I am trying to project the image of a mature adult, one capable of smoothly navigating the waters of life. And on the other, I'm still the girl, nearly too old for such a epithet, scared and wondering where the hell I misplaced my instruction manual on life. 

I hope you'll come watch me through my false starts, failures, delays, crises, and hopefully, successes. 

love,

aj