An old spring movie

Somehow this video never made it online. Knotweed is a great plant not only because you can cook it sweet and savory, but also because it is so dominant in so many landscapes, you can beat the heck out of it and not worry about it. Last spring I drove my new bicycle and myself through this patch of it on Martha's Vineyard.

Follow this link for the video.



More currently, some friends and I did a quick tour of Santa Barbara wine country this past weekend. After two sips at our first stop, I got bored with that and decided to take advantage of the cacti growing beside the tasting house. I harvested them (carefully, using newspaper and cardboard so as to not get a handful of prickers Lorena-style) and we dined on them over the next couple days. As is often the case with my foraged goodies, I ate about 80% of what I hauled in, and everyone else respectfully had a bite or two. In this case, OK by me. Prickly pear cactus: grainy pulp like watermelon, magenta juice, mildly sweet, and seeds that go right down. Much better than the one I found in a New Hampshire supermarket one day. Random websites also reveal that prickly pear is "High in Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Calcium and Potassium." Every plant is high in some good vitamins though, so I usually don't care about this, but a friend of mine asked though, so there it is.

Fruit frenzy on Fire Island (and the Iron Sheik)

Last week I took a short trip to Fire island, which is off the southern coast of Long Island. The getting there was hectic, a direct consequence of my preference for not planning things. Long story short, the rain, the traffic on I95, and my late start from the Cape all added up to my making the 6pm ferry from new London in seconds, literally, and then plunking down and realizing I had no clue how to get from the ferry landing spot, Orient Point, which might more aptly be called Nowhere Point, to Bay Shore from where I would take the final ferry to Fire Island. I was banking on the goodwill of one girl who heard my plight and seemed to be viciously iphone chatting her mom to convince her I was OK (so i imagined) but at the end, she said no. So I went to the bar and the pet lounge, two places on the ferry where one might find some trusting humans, and struck out there too. It was late and pouring, and just as I was glumly leaving the ferry, a woman offered me a lift. She had been in the bar and initially said no, or rather, said nothing, but she mulled it over and decided to help me out. She got me to fire island that night and she restored my sinking faith in humanity. Her name was Jean.

When I finally got to the ferry to take me the final mile, I was completely fried and had 30 minutes to kill. So I went into Nicky’s Clam bar and ordered a Jameson “neat” and this was just the start of having people look at me (and soon brian and jordan) as if we were from another planet. The bartender had no idea what neat meant, neither did his two drinking buddies, the only other occupants of the bar. I was tired so had trouble defining it (“you know…neat”) finally one of the bartender’s buddies said “Oh..straight up!”  It wasn’t over at that though. I think he had never poured the drink that way, and he filled up and entire highball glass with the stuff. Well, waste-not, down it went. From a series of half-drunk-fully-tired art photos taken on the way over:

Asking for vegan food on Fire Island was equally confusing. We ended up eating a lot of low budget toast, some fruit, and gorging on black cherries as we walked the path. When Brian and Jordan and I hang out, we often chat about veganism and such, and the rampant waste all around us, and on our final breakfast out we were beside a couple who each ordered the 19 egg omelet, so we got a little excited. I squirmed around for a while until finally I went right for the jugular: “Miss, my friend’s and I recently are experimenting with freeganism… … …so…. if you are not going to finish that omelet we gladly will.” They were quite nice about it and happy to hand it over, so down it went. plus their home fries cooked in butter, and their biscuit. Ah the sweet taste of rescued diner food.

Fire Island itself is an interesting blend of get-me-out-of-here teenage vacation wasteland, cool beach architecture, and a compact nature refuge. The plants I was most interested in were the beach plums which were just getting ripe and the plump omnipresent black cherries, but I nibbled some early autumn olives and a handful of blackberries too.  The deer on the island walk the little paths and eat people’s gardens and seem to have a pretty nice existence, except for the battering of the ticks and the other fact that they seem to be hated by everyone on the island. They didn’t bother me, although one of their foodstuffs did: I got poison ivy on my left ankle…almost made it a year p.i. free, no such luck. Better than on my fingers though.

Aside from the adventures of trying to be vegan on Fire island, we did a lot of walking around. Some yoga on a fallen phone pole:

After brian and jordan left, I saddled up with the Gregor’s for more Fire Island fun. Mark Gregor has single-handedly provided me with all sorts of fun in the past couple weeks. A velir work party to cirque-de-soleil OVO (every time I see cirque, I am reminded just how lame my yoga is compared to what these people do. also every time i see cirque, it is because mark has an extra ticket), a company 10th year anniversary celebration at DeCordova, which ended in a night dip in the adjacent pond, and then fire island, staying at a house that had a pizza oven installed in the kitchen. Here’s a night-shot of the DeCordova.

My contributions to dinners were a beach plum tart (a winner) and a black cherry cake  (a loser) and a non-foraged past dish, but why talk about that…I mean, it’s too easy when the food isn’t foraged. here are mark and angie’s children, jacob and mia, after eating non-foraged, possibly even non-earthly, foods.

Orient Point, which was dark and stormy on my first visit, was beautiful on my way home. It was the end of a 40 mile bike ride through the northern fork of Long Island  -  wine country!…which means also wild grape country. I had a few minutes to kick around before the ferry back to New London, and gathered some seaweed and found a killer apple tree right at the meeting of a small wooded area and the beach, not something i expected.

Preceding the fire island trip was a quick one to the cape and vineyard since my brother’s family was on the vineyard. I rolled into Oak Bluffs and immediately got comments on my wacky Hawaiian shirt, and then many more as I proceeded to munch on the sea rocket, the mustards, the rose hips (or, tomatoes and Sam calls them), fallen apples and pears, some beach plums, and some seaweed, which I had chewed up and was ready to swallow when Mike told me that the bay was closed for swimming the other day due to bacteria or something.

Black cherry tree that we just had to stop for in the oak Bluffs graveyard.

Yesterday, Rob, Anna, and Nadin and I headed back to the South Shore for the Marshfield fair. I expected this to be a walk down memory lane, but as we kicked around the fair (for about 4 hours…it was great!) I sort of concluded I’d never been there. Or at least I couldn’t remember it at all. I couldn’t remember the demolition derby, the wrestling ring, the largest pumpkin contest (over 1/2 a ton, whoa), the pigs, chickens, rabbits, llama, water buffalo. The vortex, the Lance Gifford magic show, the completely non-scary fun houses. I mean, this place had everything (except fruit trees, have I complained about that before? - enough with the oaks and the maples for god’s sakes). It turned out to be more difficult to hand off the stuffed animals than it was to win them. And finally, it turned out you don’t just take a picture with the Iron Sheik for free, you have to pay $20, which we did. I mean this was crazy. There sat the Iron Sheik, at a folding table off in the distance, alone, a wrestling career far behind him. Just as depressing as the movie The Wrestler paints the picture of amateur wrestling and the life of again wrestlers.  All this and single wrinkly string bean with a first prize bean winner ribbon on it. Tonight is the last night of the fair for this year, kind of sad. Already looking forward to next year. 

A recent d-dive haul (is that queso fresco, fully sealed up there? yep.):

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

I took a long walk from the convention center in Philadelphia to my friend Andrew's place near Fishtown. My impression of Philly was a lot of vacant lots, depressed, hot, and big weird weeds that I could not identify. Philly is huge so this walk wasn't enough to judge the whole place, but this is what we do...see a little and generalize. Philly looks to me like Detroit + LA, 3 cities I don't know well.

Bartram's garden was a little run down too, even though the web claimed it was a hidden gem of philly. It was in a dumpy neighborhood. I ate Cornus mas for the first time. Sour, except for the ones over-ripening and attracting ants on the ground. Those were hot -- temperature -- and sweetish. I never see that plant in Boston, although I've heard of it, probably at the arboretum (philly's arboretum I passed on. They charge $15 to get in).

I didn't realize until I had arrived at bartram's garden that this was the very same bartram of botanical illustrations that I had looked into before when I was considering using public domain old botanical images for my book, which never happened because it was really hard to find old drawings of the plants I wanted to include, which was frustrating because I figure people must have have drawn them all many times over the years.

The other great find for me at bartram's garden was patience dock, according to Sam Thayer the best of all the docks. I found it in the weed/compost pile and it was fantastic. This plus a massive amount of purslane that they let me take made for a nice dinner at Andrew's parent's house.

After the few days in philly, I returned to cambridge for a few hours, enough time to finish off Crime and Punishment (one sentence summary: 23-year old melancholic intellectual stews over the idea of offing some old pawn-broker lady, finally does it, then stews over confessing, finally confesses, then goes to Siberia for 8 years of hard labor) and forage some blackberries for my 4 day trip to Colorado.



Here in colorado, the berries of choice for foraging right now are raspberries and mountain gooseberries. While the rest of the fellas went after trout yesterday, I went after lamb's quarters and nasturiums etc. for a salad. I dug a burdock root, mainly to try to stop everyone from asking "can you really get enough from just greens?" but it is mid-summer and the thing was hard as a stick, so I tossed it. There is lots of salsify around here, but it's not the season for those roots either, so my trusty lamb's quarters has kept me going. There is also tons of cow parsnip so even though it is not spring, I grabbed some of that for a soup. A long walk last night before our drinking fest led me up a mountain rd, several deer sightings (including a baby that hopped away just like Bambi...the Disney animators nailed that one) and a coyote (or some other hungry skinny ragged looking animal) sighting.

Since finishing off Crime and Punishment, I haven't selected another read yet, so I've been pounding through this month's Harper's. Here's a funny snippet from an article about this guy who made a really terrible movie a few years back, called The Room, which has become a minor cult hit. The director and writer and star, Tommy Wiseau, states that his goal, which he is fairly certain he will reach, is for 90% of Americans to see the movie. The reporter points out that not every American has even seen Snow White. At that point...

T. Wiseau: I'm not concerned with other movies. I'm concerned only about The Room at this time. If that's your analogy, that's fine with me. But yes, absolutely, we will eventually beat Snow White.

The reporter: You realize how ridiculous that sounds.

Wiseau: No, it's not at all.

That section made me laugh out loud. It was preceeded by a quote from critic Robert Hughes which I also enjoyed: "The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." I don't agree with that. In fact, I bet a lot of lesser artists (i.e. most of us) who experience doubt would turn to such a quote as a pat on the back (oh, you have doubts about your work, this means you have great artistry inside), and I bet that's why the quote is well-known.

Addendum: on the way to the airport, actually heard the old John Denver song Rocky Mountain High, whcih goes on for a while, but is still great. One never hears that song on the east coast nowadays.

The black nightshade post

I was just out for a stroll to keep the blood flowing nicely through me veins - I had some varicose veins removed the other day so I'm all bandaged up and it is good to walk a lot. Anyhow, while exploring some parts of the MGH campus that I hadn't gone to yet, I walked by a black nightshade plant with black berries fully ripe and ready to go. Complete trust in the authoritative Sam Thayer on the plant and I popped them right in, and he is correct, they are great, and they taste just like ground cherries. I've been excited to write this post for a long time as I've been eyeing the plants come to maturity this whole summer. A google search on something like "black nightshade poisoning" is a fun way to waste some time on the web. It's amazing what people will say on a topic they have no knowledge of.



Weekend on the cape, mom and I enjoyed a great fully foraged salad.


I am considering doing a post on the vein surgery, but that might gross out my 20 readers, so, we'll see.

In the thick of milkweed pods

It's hot out there. Inside the gallery a photo shoot is happening right now, we are snapping some portraits [a little 4th grade school style..a slight body turn, a slight head tilt]. Annie just added paint brushes into the mix, I am over here trying to keep things consistent, but I'm blogging so my voice for that is not predominant and things are getting more and more out of control. I will soon give up and go over there with my ball jar full of sumac-ade and use that as my prop. Since everything is early this year, the sumac is already ready and delicious. The ball jar method: put a staghorn of sumac into a large ball far, fill with cold water, let sit for a day or so in the refrigerator. I sweetened mine with a touch of agave syrup.


Had a brief NYC trip last friday for Alex's b-day party. Walking around that day, the 4th floor of the Leica gallery building was vacant which made for some fun snooping and photography (I'd buy a Leica if I had any inkling whatsoever what makes a good camera good). Here's a nice shot of the space.

Larry David sighting that day. He was filming, probably Curb by the look of it. He was hailing a cab and then yelling at some woman who nabbed it from him. "..This is anarchy!" It was great.

As for the party itself, Ingo Lou got things crazy from the moment we decided we needed some extra wine. After all, who drops the "cash only" at the same time they drop the 1400 dollar bill? Things proceeded downward from there, ending with a dumpstered baguette fight, everyone including myself versus me. Forehead bread scar.

Speaking of dumpstered, here's the fruit salad that got me through last week. Since the last few days have been HOT, I've kept clear of the dumpsters. But not the milkweed patches. E. Gibbons and S. Thayer disagree wildly on milkweed preparation and while I truly dig all of Thayer's writings, I'm siding with Gibbons on this one: boil the heck out of them. It could just be a personal thing, like daylilies, and me and Gibbons taste the bitter principle in there. Last night was a good prep: after two five minute boils, into an Asian stirfry with plenty of field garlic (thanks arboretum) and ginger (thanks somewhere far away).





Cherries from Putnam street. Made jam with them, used old over-jellied crab apple jam from last year to sweeten it. Hopefully that wasn't a terrible thing to do.

A good year for fruit

It's going to be a good year for fruit. Juneberries are finishing up but had a big yield this year, particularly since I found many more juneberry plants that I had known previously. Also, to my delight, MIT just threw in about 10 very mature juneberry shrubs over by my old stomping grounds, building E40. Walking always reveals way more foraging opportunities than cycling, and the other day Sarah and I walked right under a cherry tree busting out with brilliant red and juicy sour cherries. Went back for a bunch. If I go back again, a step ladder could be put to good use.

Peaches are looking real good around town, and I spotted a huge nectarine tree in Allston the other day. Dust off the Ball jars.

Purslane is coming out now too, and I just enjoyed a salad of it with chickweed, both taken from my brother's yard yesterday. I only had to remove one of sadie's (their dog) hairs.

And savvy's last night: mega bread, golden delicious apples, a peach, onions, turnips, and two sirloins. The biscuit: wrapped sandwiches, sure enough. This I learned from a fellow d-diver, swapping diving locations.

I better learn amaranth pronto because I was flipping through a new book at harvard co-op the other day, urban homesteading, and in their chapter on urban foraging, they mention amaranth. Shameful that I haven't pinned down that one yet. Did however FINALLY find the elusive (around here) salisfy plant the other day. Just check in the driest, nastiest, railroad "soil" and there it will be.

Making the world a better place

I was doing my public service of weeding a community garden over in Newton, along the charles. After getting a handful of lady's thumb and such, a nasty old gardener (nog) asks me if I am a "member". I say no, I'm just picking weeds. Then something like this ensues.

nog: you gotta leave, get out of here.

me: ok. but (leaving) but i was just picking weeds.

nog: doesn't matter. you have to go.

(i'm still walking toward the exit at this point, where I was heading anyhow).

nog: .... you were here before, right?

(I think for a sec and then say)

me: yeah, like two years ago I think I came here.

nog: no, you were here last week.

me: ahh...nope.

nog: yes you were.

as I am getting on my bike, he is grumbling to his friend, another nog no doubt, about my being there. amazing. some people are just not out there to make the world a better place. I was tempted to show him my findings, explain to him these are good eats, etc.

Anyhow, I tell this lightly, but I was all stirred up inside. I hate when people treat others that way, and I should know to completely avoid even sharing words with them at all, no matter how diffusing and polite I try to be. Trying to argue with that guy would have obviously gone nowhere, and just gets me riled up. Next time, I just say nothing. I'll play a mute.

Amsterdam has a LOT of nettles, and I saw a chicken mushroom (already) growing on a willow outside of de hortus. Almost took it but it would've been hard to get through customs. Actually, no it wouldn't. I find that you just lie and say you have nothing and you have a good chance. Instead, like an idiot, I admitted to the customs that I took a few seeds home (flowers seeds, a mask for my mary-j seeds). Total failure, they made me thrown them all out. In a fictional world...

me: Can I keep the 4 mary-j seeds I paid 20 euros for?

them: step this way, sir.

Savvy's dive last night (and a question we all have at some point: what is a lamb, a sheep, same thing? lamb is to sheep as beef is to cow):


Also, tons of juneberries and mulberries out. Since most mulberries usually are pretty bland, I made my sheet-gathered lot into spiced mulberry jam, which came out decent. Here's a tray's worth ready to be frozen.


Red and white mulberries in the pots.