The sweetest, most sincere cooking video I've ever seen

Innocently looking up a decent mackerel recipe, I found this little video by one MaryJose. I don't know anything about them (I just found it and had to post it here), but I think they are cute. Don't be mean, they are very sincere.

Anybody ever use lambs' quarters?

© 2009 Joshua Stark

I just found out that a plant growing in my garden is not only edible, but, according to some, better than its cultivated cousin, spinach.
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I found it in a book titled, "Edible and Useful Plants of California", by Charlotte Bringle Clarke. It's a great book, though lacking the color photos for most of the plants, an absolute necessity for this coward. In fact, I'd prefer a book that came with a tiny person who knew all of it and I could carry in my shirt pocket, somebody who would point and say, "that's good right there." Lacking that (come on, Bill Gates), I have to make due with Google, which I love, anyway.

Another interesting thing I found in this book is that manzanita is edible and good. This book also includes recipes, so I'll be trying out the manzanita in a couple of weeks. Truthfully, I felt kinda stupid not considering manzanita (Spanish for "little apple") as edible.

To quote Tommy Lee Jones in a famous movie, "Just imagine what we will know tomorrow."

Foraging

The archery-only season for deer in the Northern Sierra Nevada drew to a close yesterday, and yet, that isn't a picture of venison...

The archery-only season for deer in the Northern Sierra Nevada drew to a close yesterday, and yet, that isn't a picture of venison...

These are blue, or mexican, elderberry (Sambucus mexicana). Down where we live on the Delta, these plants begin fruiting in June. However, I found myself on some 5-6,000 ft. elevations over the weekend, and found fruiting plants and flowers, which I also gathered.

Not really caring for the taste of fresh elderberries (they remind me of slightly bland blueberries), I never bothered collecting these, but I've recently taken up canning, and I'd heard that they really do better when cooked a bit. Since there were still no deer with antlers (I firmly believe that deer with antlers are a myth perpetuated by the Dept. of Fish & Game), I started picking, and took about five cups.

Later, down the hill, I found a great blackberry bramble, and picked a few cups of those, too. Yesterday, I made blackberry jam (my first time with pectin), two quarts of deep-colored jam, and my favorite. I also submerged the elderberry flowers in a simple syrup and lemon juice and zest.

As for game, nothing in season (that I'd known about), but good flocks of mountain and valley quail, and band-tailed pigeons, as well as squirrels.

Guess what?

I picked up this little gem this morning. Our first! Sorry about the sepia tones, the batteries on our camera were dying, and I couldn't use the flash. The jars to the left are blackberry preserves. The past couple of days I've not gotten any game while hunting, but I did pick a couple of pounds of elderberries, some elderflowers, and blackberries. Tonight, I'll have a one-egg omelet with garlic, tomatoes, green beans, basil, and peppers. The only thing not grown here will be the milk! It's a start.