EATING FROM THE GARDEN OF THE WILD MOTHER

A Maine spring is elusive...it shows a peak of full summer in March and April but when May comes I find myself sitting by a fire plotting my garden and feeling frustrated because it is cold, raining and I'm dog tired of garden veggies from the freezer. I am hungry for FRESH! I set myself free in the woods and am becoming a feisty forager. I love, love love foraging. It sets something deep inside me singing. My souls wild music...I wander about in the woods watching my dog Sadie expressing her passionate joy moment by moment in the woods. She especially loves the brooks and rivulets...you can see her ears go back when she hears the music of the moving water, and then she's off...her pace picks up and she races with all herself, bounding on rocks, jumping back and forth over streams, ducking under tree roots and then lying down and drinking her fill from the  wild water. As I watch her, I feel my own animal self surrender to the pleasure of foraging. Not only am I up and walking for several hours, but I am filling bags with spring green goodies that I will cook for supper when I get home. I'm spending calories for groceries from the wild mother's garden and since I'm unemployed, its the right price. The neighbors I run into are the telltale signs of passage by deer, moose, bear and birds...the whitewash tells me where the barred owl sat quietly watching...the pile of moose scat is fresh enough to be today, so he proceeded me by a few hours. The bears poop is large and unformed. Don't know what he's eating right now but he's definitely been here too. The Kingfisher makes all kinds of excited noises as he flies up and down the river bed. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of a friend's company. She is a lover of foraging too and together with our field guides and experiences, we shared with each other what we knew and came home with plenty. Maine Fiddlehead ferns are one of foragings best finds. Where they grow, there are hundreds so its pretty easy to fill up a bag. The season though is coming to an end, at least in the valleys. Up in the higher elevations, things are coming along a little slower. I was home cleaning the fiddleheads and I had a discussion in my brain. I had enough to freeze some. I have been told they freeze very well and I played with the idea. Then...I said...NO. No, I'm not going to freeze any. I've been eating frozen veggies all winter and I will pick only what we can eat fresh. The great pleasure of foraging is that I am out in the garden helping the plants thrive and eating some fresh picked and local.The Wild Mother's garden gets along fine without me and is taking away the impatience I have from not seeing my asparagus grow fast enough. I fix my fiddleheads very simply. After cleaning them well, I boil some water...enough to cover what I'm cooking. When the water boils, I dump in the ferns and let them boil for 5-6 minutes. Then I pour them out in a strainer to remove the water, put them back in the pan, and drizzle some herb vinegar and wild mushroom infused olive oil, and toss with a pinch of garlic seasalt and fresh ground black pepper to finish them off. They are so good.

My new discovery yesterday was the spring shoot of the cattail. It was a little more of an adventure to harvest them because they grow right in the water. I fell in with my right leg going in up to my knee, but it was pretty funny and I could ignore the discomfort for awhile. My harvest of spring cattail also included some dandilion greens. Elba shared her preparation with me...a Curried Cattail Soup. Mmmm. It was simple. You cut the bottoms off the cattail shoot...the part that is white. It looks alot like scallion or green onion. Then you slice the white shoots. I started my quick saute with 1/2 an onion chopped small and some chopped garlic in olive oil and 1 tbsp. of curry powder. Then I threw in some sliced mushrooms, washed and chopped dandilion greens and added the sliced cattail. When everything was tender but not overdone, I threw it all in a sauce pan with 2 cups stock and 2 cups water, topped with fresh ground pepper. I didn't tell Stephen what it was made of until he was half done eating his...so he knew he liked it before I told him what he was eating.

The meal also included Trader Joe's sundried tomato and goat cheese raviolis with an Oyster mushroom sauce. I grew the oyster mushrooms on my kitchen counter from a kit I bought at Garden Day Maine. The mushrooms grow in a mixture of pressed wood chips and coffee grounds. Interesting...but very expensive for the amount that you actually get. But...now I'm just a week or two away from wild oysters for free. Weather permitting and also, my ability to locate them may be up to the oyster mushroom fairies who are unpredictable. Sometimes you find things when you aren't looking for them...so be prepared.

I am so grateful to live near wild places where I can mosey about and find good things to eat. When one thing stops growing, something else is just starting. The hummingbirds leave Maine just after labor day and their leaving creates a big hole...a void where once vibrant life buzzed about and cavorted with its young. When they go...its time to hit the woods for wild mushrooms. When they come back in spring...it marks the time of first mushrooms...and the celebration of their return. Such tiny glimmering buzzing irridescent jewels...they are a joy to watch. As I eat my foods from the wild garden and drink my Chaga and Birch sap, I am aware of being touched inside by the outside. Not only am I enjoying my environment of the wild woods and all that live in it...I am literally drinking and eating and partaking in that wildness and it feels good. It feels FRESH. It makes me feel alive...like a puppy jumping stream banks. Well. Almost.