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What Are Garlic Scapes? Grow and Cook With This Garden Delicacy
Read MoreGarlic scapes are a rare delicacy. In spring they briefly appear at farmer’s markets then disappear. You may have come across them at the farmer’s market, wondered what they were, and moved on. Garlic scapes have the crisp crunchiness of green beans with a mild garlic flavor. The best way to acquire garlic scapes is […]
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Wild Foraging: Cooking With Wild Mustard
Read MoreWild mustard is despised among native plant activist. It smothers native plants and flowers transforming the landscape of the United States. Each plant can produce up to 500 seeds allowing it to spread rapidly. It is also allelopathic meaning its leaves and roots exude compounds that inhibit other plants from growing. When it dries up […]
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Urban Foraging: Vegan Mint and Loquat Ice Cream
Read MoreIn my previous post we explored foraging in the urban landscape. Food is growing wild all over our cities, we just need to retrain our eyes to see it. One of my favorite fruits to forage in Los Angeles is the loquat. This hardy tropical looking tree is a popular landscape plant. Most people don’t […]
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What I’m Reading: The Urban Homestead
Read MoreThere is a movement happening in America’s cities. A movement of people who map edible trees in their neighborhoods and eat weeds growing from cracks in the sidewalk. These people can be heard in the tap rooms of microbreweries using words like ‘Araucana’ and ‘Rhode Island Red.’ There are sourdough starters in fridges and worm […]
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Wild Foraging: How to Make Horehound Cough Drops
Read MoreWhen candy shops spelled shop ‘shoppe’ and children saved their nickels to buy candy cigarettes, you could buy unwrapped horehound cough drops covered in powdered sugar. These cough drops were soothing to sore throats and enjoyed as candy. Today, you can find horehound as an ingredient in Ricola cough drops. Horehound (Marrubium vulgare) is a member […]
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Wild Brew: White Sage and Lime Cider
Read MoreThis recipe for white sage and lime cider is adapted from Pascal Baudar’s The New Wildcrafted Cuisine. This recipe uses one of the most iconic plants of Southern California to make one of my favorite wild plant brews. The cider tastes clean and refreshing with light sage notes. The season, area where the sage was […]
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What I’m Reading: The New Wildcrafted Cuisine
Read MoreI met Pascal Baudar at a semi-wild park on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. I was there to learn how to make beer from wild plants. Baudar immediately drew me in with stories of elementary school in Belgium where beer was served at lunchtime. Before making the beer, Baudar took us on a […]
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Garden Cocktails: The Bourbon Red
Read MoreMost beet cocktails (not that there are many) are vodka based. For me however, beets feel like fireplaces, oak, cigar smoke and old men in tweed. Therefore, I pair beets with bourbon for this beet cocktail. I don’t know if it will ever find its way into a hunting lodge but it is one of my […]
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The Tools of Permaculture: A Guide to Permaculture Techniques
Read MoreThis is the third part in my permaculture series. Check out Part I: The Permaculture Principles and Part II: A History of Permaculture and its Movers and Shakers. Permaculture is a thought process. There are many methods employed by permaculturist but these methods do not make the movement. My teacher, Larry Santoyo, likes to say that […]
