David Craft CV at gray.mgh.harvard.edu, from webarchive.org

Since gray.mgh.harvard.edu is down, here is a snapshot of that site, and here is a copy and paste:

David Craft, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Radiation Oncology E-mail: dcraft(at)alum.mit.edu

Education and Degrees:

B.Sc.: Brown University, Mechanical Engineering (solid mechanics), Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Ph.D.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Operations Research, 2004

Areas of Interest:

Multi-criteria optimization in radiation therapy
Mathematics and statistics

Publications:

Shared data for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) optimization research: the CORT dataset GigaScience, 2015.

Three-dimensional conformal planning with low-segment multicriteria intensity modulated radiation therapy optimization, Kahn, Craft.  GigaScience, 2015.

Optimization approaches to volumetric modulated arc therapy planningUnkelbach, Bortfeld, Craft, et al, Med Phys, 2015.

Plan averaging for multicriteria navigation of sliding window IMRT and VMAT, Med Phys, 2014.

Multi-criteria optimization methods in radiation therapy planning: a review of technologies and directions. Springer, submitted.

Guaranteed Epsilon-Optimal Solutions with the Minimum Number of Beams for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, Yarmand, Winey, Craft. PMB (2013)

A hybrid approach to beam angle optimization in intensity-modulated radiation therapy  Bertsimas, Cacchiani, Craft, Nohadani. Computers and Operations Research (2013).

Maximizing dosimetric benefits of IMRT in the treatment of localized prostate cancer through multicriteria optimization planning, Medical Dosimetry, 2013.

Deliverable navigation for multicriteria step and shoot IMRT treatment planning, Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2013.

The dependence of optimal fractionation schemes on the spatial dose distribution, Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2013.

Exploring Trade-off s between VMAT Treatment Quality and Delivery E fficiency, Salari et al, Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2012.

Optimal partial-arcs in VMAT treatment planning, Jeremiah Wala, Ehsan Salari, Wei Chen and David Craft, Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2012.

Including robustness in multi-criteria optimization for intensity-modulated proton therapy, Wei Chen, Jan Unkelbach, Alexei Trofimov, Thomas Madden, Hanne Kooy, Thomas Bortfeld and David Craft, 2012 Phys. Med. Biol. 57.

Multicriteria VMAT optimization, to appear in Medical Physics, 2012 Improved planning time and plan quality through multicriteria optimization for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics, 2011

A fast optimization algorithm for multicriteria intensity modulated proton therapy planning. Chen, Herman, Craft, Madden, Zhang, Kooy. Medical Physics, 2010; 37(9).

Simultaneous navigation of multiple Pareto surfaces, with an application to multicriteria IMRT planning with multiple beam angle configurations. Medical Physics 2010;37(2).

Calculating and Controlling the Error of Discrete Representations of Pareto Surfaces in Convex Multi-Criteria Optimization. Physica Medica. 2010.

Multicriteria Optimization in IMRT Treatment Planning For Locally Advanced Cancer of the Pancreatic Head. International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics, 2008;72(4):1208-1214.

Evaluating Target Cold Spots By the Use of Tail EUDs. International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics, 2008;71:880-889.

How Many Plan Are Needed in an IMRT Multi-Objective Plan Database. Physics in Medicine and Biology. 2008;53:2785-2796.

An approach for practical multiobjective IMRT treatment planning, Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2007;69(5):1600-1607

The tradeoff between treatment plan quality and intensity field complexity in IMRT, Red Journal, volume 67 number 5, April 2007

Local beam angle optimization with linear programming and gradient search. Phys. Med. Biol. -- March 2007 -- Vol. 52, pp. N127-N135.

Dose-volume objectives in multi-criteria optimization (Halabi et al., Phys. Med. Biol. -- August, 2006 -- Volume 51, pp. 3809-3818)

Approximating convex Pareto surfaces in multiobjective radiotherapy planning (Medical Physics -- September 2006 -- Volume 33, Issue 9, pp. 3399-3407)

Exploration of tradeoffs in intensity-modulated radiotherapy (2005, Physics in Medicine and Biology)

Maximizing Operating Room and Recovery Room Capacity in an Era of Constrained Resources, Arch Surg. 2006;141:389-395.

Surgeon Profiling: A Key to Optimum Operating Room Use, Arch Surg. 2007;142:365-370

Ph.D. Thesis: Local energy management through mathematical modeling and optimization

Analyzing Bioterror Response Logistics: The Case of Anthrax (May 2005, Management Science, Volume 51, Number 5)

Analyzing bioterror response logistics: The case of smallpox (2003, Mathematical Biosciences, Volume 185 Issue 1)

Emergency response to a smallpox attack: The case for mass vaccination (2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)          - Work discussed in the New York Times, July 9, 2002

Emergency Response to an Anthrax Attack (2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

A Mathematical Model of the Impact of Novel Treatments on the A-Beta Burden in the Alzheimer's Brain, CSF and Plasma (2001, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology)

Bower, A.F. and Craft, D. (1998) Analysis of failure mechanisms in the interconnect lines of microelectronic circuits. Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures 21 611-630

Books:

Some of Infinity: peaks in the landscape of mathematics, (in progress) 2015.

Urban Foraging, Finding and eating wild plants in the city, Service Berry Press, 2011.

Music:

Return To Their Natural Coast, 2012

Foraging:

My foraging tours schedule at foragelive.com

Life alive sauce

Life Alive, the great veggie cafe that replaced Hollywood video a few years ago on Mass Ave in Cambridge, MA, uses this great sauce on almost all of their rice bowl dishes. This is it!

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly chopped ginger

1/4 cup garlic, de-centered

2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon nama shoyu, or tamari, or soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1.5 cups plus 2 tablespoons olive oil


Blend the ginger, garlic, lemon juice, nama shoyu, salt, and 1/2 cup of the olive oil on high.

Add just enough olive oil to get the mixture to turn over. Once the ginger and garlic have broken down into a smooth cream, slowly add the remaining 1 and 1/8 cup olive oil. 

Use this sauce over rice with your favorite foraged items. Like boiled burdock, pokeweed shoots, jersulam artichokes, chestnuts if they ever return, or fiddleheads. 

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Why I love the Charles

Porcini!

Also these almond scented russulas which smell so good but the books say they are inedible. Then they say it is because they taste spicy. I tried them in my mouth, yes, they are spicy, but is that it? Is that why they are inedible..because I like spicy food. I need more data. Will ask the boston mycological club.

Boston magazine interview turns into a Porcini score!

I took a long lunch break today at work to do an interview with a gal from Boston Magazine. Even though I rarely forage around my work, I took her around there anyhow for convenience. We found wild parsnip .. first time I've ever seen that in the city .. and then over by some oak trees some little porcinis. Above, in the frying pan, now, in my stomach.  Also grabbed some pretty good looking chickweed and curly dock, in the collander, and on the way to work some juneberries which are in the pot on the left along with farmers market rhubarb and strawberries.  You'll also see pictured an orange and an apple. Also foraged. It's a little weird how much fruit I find that I guess falls out of bike baskets or something. These guys were lying in the mulch (where I also found a couple wine cap mushrooms, which have been abundant this year) over near my new sort-of-guerrilla garden at MIT (I dug it myself and it's in a weird spot, but, I got permission, so it's not that bad-ass).

This weekend will bring in the cherry/mulberry/juneberry haul, just as I finish the end of my last year's canned fruit, the apricots.

Get out there with your sheets and shake down those super fruit mulberries!

3D Pareto surface foraging

The world needs a nice picture of a 3D Pareto surface. I am always looking for one, so I took the time to make on. This has nothing to do with foraging, but this will at least make the thing available for public use. Hoping a google search for "3D Pareto surface" will have this as  a first hit soon enough.

In terms of FORAGING, my latest trip to California for the wedding of Melissa and Jeff included some nice new finds.   Foraged and ate a bunch of dragon fruits, a lot easier than the other red cactus fruits I've gotten before that require gloves because they are full of prickers.

Then there were the fallen oranges and grapefruits and persimmons. Black walnuts right at the wedding site provided a nice distraction, cracking them open on the rocks right there.  But my favorite item was the olives.  Lots of people grow olive trees, and I stopped at one point in San Bernadino and found about 5 full of olives on the street itself...not in someone's yard.  So I got a whole bunch and have various people (Stef, Helma) curing them for me. I took some home myself but didn't want to get them taken away by California Agricultural rules at the airport, which is why I convinced my California friends to cure them themselves. But I got mine through so am curing a small batch. They should be ready to try in about a month.

And once more, for search engine reasons: 3D Pareto surface.  And buy urban foraging on amazon!

SHOWTIME

I've been busy this summer rehearsing for 3 things: 2 choral performances and a play. Hopefully some of you can get to some of these. They will be cool in different ways so pick your poison. In order of the performances:

Chorus 1: (award winning)Mercury Orchestra sings Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe. This is a haunting, moody piece with hard jazzy voicings, and it should sound great in Sanders Theatre.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18 . 8:00 pm. More info here. Advance tickets are $20, $15 for students.

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Play: Rumors, a wacky comedy by Neil Simon. I play the befuddled cop at the end of his rope, at the end of the play.  I get to yell a bit, which is fun. This is going up at the Georgetown Community Theatre, 22 Pleasant St.  Georgetown, MA 01833. You might remember me as Gene Scechi in Back in Your Own Backyard, an original Hanover High School production c.a. 1990. 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23-26. 23-25 are at 8 pm and 26th is a matinee at 3 pm. Tickets are $10. 

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Chorus 2: This we've been rehearsing for all summer. Calliope is a non-profit chorus/orchestra in Boston, and besides sounding great, they give away proceeds from all of their shows to area non-profits.  They have creative programming, and this summer the concert is "A Mass in Pieces", which is a collage of great pieces from various composers' masses.  Bach, Beethoven, Rossini, Bloch, and more. 

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 7:30 pm, 

First Church, Boston, 66 Marlborough Street.

Mayapples. These are the ones we didn't eat because they are not ripe enough. The ripe ones tasted unbelievably good - sweet like a passionfruit meets a guava. We all swallowed but didn't chew the seeds, and no one suffered any ill effects or feelings.

M & M s

Last week on the vineyard brought a ton of foraging. I'm getting better about picking only things that I know people will like (although my friend Jody didn't seem to like the watercress soup, but everyone else did enough so that we sucked down at least 10 gallons of the stuff). So, for example, I didn't prepare anything "knotweed". I stuck to pokeweed, daisy greens, milkweed, and watercress as the bulk foraged items.

Here are my milkweed pickers.

And here is the haul.

I cut off the white part of the stem and boiled the rest for 10 minutes and.. no bitterness! I think I have, at least for the time being, satisfied myself that it is the white part that has produced the bitterness confusion in the foraging literature.

On the ferry boat home, I got a phone call from a friend in Cambridge saying she had possibly found morels in her back yard. The next day I verified that they were in fact morels and proceeded to eat them for lunch. Thanks Julia!!  So, Cantabridgians, keep your eyes peeled.  Look in your mulch, and even look where the foundation starts and the mulch begins.  The deformed one (which I split into two to make the "haul" look more impressive) was coming right out of such a crack.

Mountains of chickweed after a bit of rain

In preparation for tonight's dinner, hosted at Harvard, I headed out to my favorite one-town-shopping foraging spot - J.P. It started pretty mildly with some not so great tasting linden leaves, but started to pick up speed the deeper I got.  I was able to gather a quick bag of nettles and some milkweed shoots, and then I headed over to the giant composting dirt mound area at Peter's Hill in the arboretum.  Mountains of chickweed, lamb's quarters, and pokeweed, three top notch spring veggies.

Of course, while I was upon a mountain of lamb's quarters, I get a call from my work. It was 9:30am. I was supposed to be at the 9:00 meeting.  Instead of "I'm on a mountain of great edible weeds!" which I was tempted to say, I went with "Oh...I'm not there", to which I got a reasonable "Duh" response.

I ate some of those weeds during the 12 o'clock meeting. But I'm really looking forward to getting into all that pokeweed!

What is good for the goose?

First, a couple comparably mundane things. And then a strong kicker at the end.

Mundane 1) It's been a good year for shepard's purse. Here's one right outside my office. But the other day in the arboretum, Sarah B and I found some super plush ones which made great salad greens.

Mundane 2) I guerrilla planted 2 apricot trees and 1 aprium (apricot/plum hybrid) with Rachel the other night, somewhere in Cambridge.  They are still alive and looking pretty good. They get a couple of ball jars full of water each per week.  Hopefully Jay and the kids are watering the ones we planted in Hanover a bit more.

Kicker) I got a phone call the other day from a girl who does a lot of farmer organizing (farmhack.net is one of her many recent projects...she also runs the greenhorns) asking me if I'd like to come over with a bunch of her friends for roadkill dinner. It was kind of a garbled message, but I was pretty sure I heard roadkill.  So I took Sarah E to see what this was all about, stopping to grab some elm branches with young seeds and some redbud buds, in order to contribute something. They invited me because of my urban forager status after all, and I had to show up with something. No time to return home to my fridge which is already overflowing with wild edibles.  Anyhow, sure enough, on arrival, we were treated to a fine dinner including dried seaweed, black quinoa, and a roasted roadkill goose from the Charles river. Apparently Severin and her friend Dan were biking on the river, talking about how it'd be nice to try a river goose one day, and lo and behold, right up ahead moments later they came across a warm one, just bumped off. They plucked it, brined it, and cooked it. Hardcore, to say the least.  I had a bit, it was tough but tasty. God help me if I ever come across that situation.  I'll be torn.

No picture, but imagine a turkey with much darker meat.

Stinging Nettles

Easter Sunday brought me out to the burbs to visit Jay and Jodi and the kids, and then down to the Cape to visit with my mom for a couple days. I took my usual walk around the block on arrival -- she lives on a little peninsula of land adjacent to Waquoit bay (which should be famous for its mussels), full of mushrooms in the fall and a good variety of weeds the rest of the year. Towards the end of the loop I spotted a nice nettles patch -- by eye and by smell -- so I went back to the house for my nettle gloves and another plastic bag. I decided to pay a parking ticket on the walk back to the patch, which was voice activated and kept getting interrupted by this barking dog named Bruin. It took far longer to pay the ticket with him yapping in the background then it would have if I'd just mailed the check in.

Anyhow, my mother likes to show me the latest from this pacific northwest blog called fat of the land, and there they had a recipe for nettle soup. Of course, the "fat" in fat of the land was apparent in their recipe, heavy on chicken broth and heavy cream. We made our own version of it which came out good enough for me to post the recipe.

Creamy vegan nettle soup

In a large soup pot, sauté an onion, a couple cloves of garlic, and a chopped sweet potato in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. After 10 minutes or so, add a couple pints of either veggie broth or water or some combination. Bring to a boil, add salt and pepper to taste, and lightly boil for 10 minutes . Carefully dump in a plastic bag of fresh nettles. Then add one package of silken tofu. Cook for another 5 minutes or so, then blend the whole thing. We served ours topped with a basil leaf.

This is a spring or late fall recipe. In late spring and summer, nettles are too tall and tough for eating and should be gathered instead for drying for tea. The illustration below is a mid summer depiction of stinging nettle.

Spring chickweed

I've decided to forage for old botanical illustrations to supplement this year's blog. Not that my point and shoot pictures were not great, but, good drawings help people learn plants better because they can caricature a plant, highlighting the identifying features. Botanical illustrations also often capture a plant at various stages of development. Although I haven't found an early illustration of daylily that shows its "shoot" stage, where it looks like a green haircut dude buried in the ground, hair poking through. But I did find a nice illustration of flowering chickweed:

For most of the foraging year, when I spot chickweed it is just stems and leaves, no flowers. This spring though, it is out in abundance and it is a matted white flowering ready-to-go salad. The leaf shape is a helpful indicator: like a spade on a deck of cards. Chickweed (called so because it's eaten by chickens, so I read) is Stellaria media, Stellaria means star in Latin; the white flowers look like little stars.

I am continuing my investigations of daylilies. Specifically the fact that I am allergic to them. Raw..no good. Had a tiny amount the other day, felt it a little. So, had some for breakfast today, cooked, and feeling fine. More to come on this.

I weeded my first urban garden this past weekend and almost already had an "incident". A gardener came in and asked me my name, but it wasn't like she was curious about my name, I could tell what she really wanted to ask me (what with my backpack open and my spade out) was if I was a member. But I distracted her with plant chatter ("all the weeds are up..yummy wild onions...") and then ducked behind the shed and hopped the fence out of her line of sight. Anything to avoid a conflict, even when I know I'm in the okay zone. I yanked plenty of chickweed and evening primroses for people, saving them a few moments, and aerating their soil for them.

Here's what those primroses would have become had no one touched them:

Instead, they are pickled, in my backpack, and waiting for me for lunch.

The spring begins!

NPR hen nut special post

The other day on my annual fall visit to Mt Auburn Cemetery, in search of a chicken mushroom and some chinese chestnuts, I instead found a load of ginkgo nuts and the right type of pine tree for pine nuts. Not too much new to report on the ginkgo nuts, except to mention that if you are going to gather them and then jump in a friend's car, be careful not to step on any of the blue cheese-smelling fruits that surround the nut (the one nearest my fingertips in the picture). Blue cheese is being kind...these guys smell BAD.

The pine nuts were an exciting find, although the excitement wore off when I got home and cracked them open, getting quite sticky, only to recover 11 nuts. All the others were blanks. But, the ones that weren't were tasty! Here they are, all 11 of them. My Italian houseguest at the time ate about 6 of them.

And in case you missed the action about 1 month ago, hens were everywhere. I had gathered so many in early October that by late October I had assumed they were all done. Then I got a call from Brian in NY who had just stumbled upon some in a Brooklyn cemetery. Of course, I then had to get out of my cozy reading situation and venture out before dark. Not really expecting to find any right in the city, I took my best guess and headed towards Brookline, took a left down a street I never go down, and whoomp, double-take, brakes, 4 huge hens. I couldn't even take them all. Hen pickles, frozen hens, plenty of stir fries and them some. Two giants below:

These days...burdock and evening primrose are keeping my rice and lentils happy at lunchtime.

A day in Jamaica Plain

It's Kousa Dogwood season and this is a good year for them. After stats class at Harvard last night (which I am barely following, but I find the nerd level entertaining) I noticed a great kousa (there are lots in Harvard yard) right next to my bike so I loaded up.



I've basically given up trying to get other people to enjoy this fruit. I guess the skin wigs people out. Maybe it's because I eat kiwis with the skin on that I'm used to it. Or because I'm stubborn and have decided to like all foraged food.

This was anna's last weekend here. Another person moving through the revolving doors of Cambridge. She was here for a while and was a good seed. Never a bad word for anyone. Here she is with rob and ZARAH under an apple tree by J.P. pond.

An anna creation.

The apples looked runty but were good, especially the red ones that we shook down. Not quite like shaking mulberries down, but, effective nonetheless. Some guy came whipping by us during this and proceeded, in the span of about 3 minutes, to enlighten us on protein content of apples, paw paws, how many people the earth can sustain, according to his own calculations (less than 1 billion), and that there are 4 amino acids. Interestingly, he told us about paw paws and about Peter's hill in the arboretum, where there were lots of apples (worst protein food there is, said he), but he didn't know that there were in fact two paw paw trees over there, which we were heading to. I told him, but I don't think he listened. The paw paws were perfect for eating and we gathered and munched a bunch. Bad year for the quince though, there were almost none. But I grabbed some of the small ones from the flowering quince shrubs, and will see if they are any good in a jam.

After a brief pitstop at the Ukranian club (Andrew, a friend of anna's, is Ukranian), we headed over to the old Franklin park zoo. With all the rain and stories coming in from the boston mycological club, I was on the high lookout for hens. And sure enough, even in over-picked Franklin park I spotted a few. Which of course made my day because hens are great. I saw some for sale at the Cambridgeport farmer's market the other day. Forgetting to take a picture in situ, I propped this guy by another oak tree for a photo, and flipped a piece over to reveal an identifying characteristic of the fungus: brown on top, white underneath. Later the next night, spicy potato, mushroom, pasta soup.




In totally unrelated news, today is the first patient treatment using the MCO software I've been working towards for the past 7 years. A big day for IMRT treatment planning!

Are those autumn olive flowers in your jar?

Yep! I've working on infusing all sorts of stuff in vodka for P.U.B. - the latest spinoff of hot potato. P.U.B. is pop.up.bar, a party we are planning where all the drinks are cocktails made from local infusions. Rhubarb, elderflowers (if I can find any), autumn olive flowers, hawthorn flowers, horehound, etc.

Over the past few weeks, lots of poke and milkweed to be had. I've come to like pokeweed a lot more than milkweed, although milkweed's plus is that it offers more edible parts as the year progresses.

Urban Milkweed


Urban Pokeweed


I took the Fung Wa to NYC this weekend, and the Lucky Star back. Brian and Jordan had a great party. Who says vegans can't barbecue? Brian grilled up old but reliable chicken mushroom. We just reconstituted it since its 6 months in the freezer left it a bit dry, then soaked it in BBQ sauce, and it was pretty darn good.

Watching the black locust flowers cover the trees along the highway was painful. I hoped the rest areas would have them, but they didn't. However, the rest area on the way home, just off Rt 84 in Connecticut, had a nice outcropping of wild grapes, which we stuffed last night for hot potato 4, coming up this Friday. I also got a veggie burger and fries at BK because I couldn't stop myself. Whatever addictive substance BK throws into their whoppers etc, they throw in the veggie burger as well.



I did some foraging yesterday in East Boston/Winchester. The foraging wasn't great, but the bike ride was. You jump on the blue line, jump off 5 stops later, and it feels like you've just started your vacation on the Jersey shore. It is so different over there. Deer Island is beautiful too, and I learned from one of the signs there that they process the waste from over 1/2 the people living in Massachusetts. That's crazy stuff. I ate some curly dock from Deer Island. Also crazy.

Weedseason

It's milkweed and pokeweed season. Pokeweed in my opinion is the far better of the two, but alas, on the way to work today, taking the railroad track route to hopefully find some pokeweed, all I found was lots of milkweed. This is about the sketchiest of all habitats that I "urban forage" (most of my urban foraging is done in nicer places, along rivers, in parks, etc. Railroad tracks through industrial Cambridge I consider more quintessential urban foraging).



But, already ate them for lunch, along with a big wollop of tansy just to try that out. Let's say they went down, but I won't be recording the recipe for the ages.

Some pics here
of the foraging tour from Saturday. We had a good time, exploring somerville, medford, and arlington, and feasted on our findings at the end, which included oysters mushrooms, nettles, a lot of pokeweed, and a large mixed green salad of linden leaves, dandelions, chickweed, redbud, and sorrel, and a stir fry of knotweed, burdock, cattails, and the mushrooms (including a young Dryad's Saddle!).

I am super impressed when people are completely shameless about their dumpster diving. Go Zaac, who led us into the Arlington TJs dumpster in broad day light, no feeling like he needed to explain anything to anyone or justify it, at all. Just another part of life. All the stuff that would have ended up there - which looked like a ton - we spotted tucked off in some red push cartons, so, not technically garbage yet, so we passed it up. If it were only a bit closer to Cambridge...

Here is the Japanese Knotweed Hot Pickle recipe that lots of folks have been asking me about. This is the first season I can get people to consistently say "wow, these are great!" and they are talking about knotweed pickles, not say, lobster rolls. Given the years of japanese knotweed stir fry attempts, this is big progress. Next year, I should approach grillospickles.com and get them hooked for running a few batches. And I should get some mugwort, tansy, etc for gruit for some local old school beer making, and then talk Cambridge brewing into doing that.

OK, on to the recipe:

JAPANESE KNOTWEED HOT PICKLES
1 part vinegar
1 part water
Bring this to a boil and add some pickling spices and salt. I like whole black peppercorns and red pepper flakes.

Add enough tender knotweed (first couple weeks of growth, whole stalk, after that, just the top section that easily breaks off) so that it is just covered. Remove from the flame. It does not need to cook at all, just being plunged in the boiling water vinegar solution is fine.

Put into sterilized mason jars. Ready for consumption as soon as they cool off! Great in salads.




In the works: hawthorn flower infused brandy. And once elderflowers are out, I will go for the homemade St. Germain. Alcohol infusions ("schnapps") I can handle but making beer and massive quantities of japanese knotweed pickles, that I must outsource.

The Gallery fundraising foraging dinner cooked by Didi Emmons was a smashing success. Many people gawked over the nettle burdock risotto, but I was most pleased with being able to find enough wild greens for a full salad for all 47 attendees. Here I am in the vineyard watercress patch, a place of real beauty.

Weed Foraged Pizza and eating grass

Foraging season is off to a fine start despite the cold weather we've been having here in Boston. Nettles were already poking up in some sunny spots a couple of weeks ago. Young mugwort, plantain, and dandelions are ready to be gathered, and the banks of the Charles are well stocked with evening primrose roots. I don't consider MGH to be great foraging grounds, but I just took a walk to find some plants to throw on my foraged pizza and was able to doctor it up nicely with all of these.



Very soon we won't be able to keep up with all the greens. The japanese knotweed (itadori -- see this cool site) onslaught is almost upon us. With this preparation technique to try, plus my soon-to-befamous hot pickle, we'll be ale to handle it no problem.

I wrote in my book that "all grasses are edible but only the young ones are digestible." On my walk that I just took, I noticed a lot of fresh young grass growing out of some haystacks (no surprise) that are lining the Charles. So, I decided to put my mouth where my words were and I ate some. It was decent.

Welcome to Spring. I hope to write a post on cleavers (an early spring edible) soon. This is a reminder to myself to do so.

My new foraging tour schedule site

foragelive.com

Eden still open

After staying up until 5:20 am playing guitar all night at Pete's party, I ended up in bed at 8:30 pm last night. Up at 5:15, like a farmer, and I decided to check out my favorite pair of apple trees. Every time I go I there I think it will be my last of the season, but, alas, there are always a few more goldens hanging on up there, making this a very long apple season. I brought a bunch home and "put up" some more apple sauce. This one I used the food processor on to whip it into baby food consistency, just to switch it up from my usual chunky blend. There they are, on the tree, in the 5:45 AM light, Allston building lights in the background.

I thought this picture of the ball jars being prepped in the microwave would look nice, but what I really got out of it was a reminder to clean the thing.

Here they are before getting cooked, and on the left you can see the sauerkraut I started last week. It is fermenting along well.

Speaking of apples, on Saturday, out for a walk (before the 10 hours finger numbing guitar playing session), I stumbled into the BU art gallery for a work-in-progress exhibit by triplet sisters from J.P. called In Search of Eden. They are called triiibe. Eden brings up apples, and they had a great collection of wacky apples from the living apple museum in upstate, Geneva, New York. I ate a big one that looked like an Asian pear. Also, free tea and music for everyone, it was a nice treat.

Nerdnite

Here are the slides for the talk I gave at nerdnite. I brought a bunch of food: boiled acorns, boiled burdock, pickled japanese knotweed, pickled purslane -- the usual fare. Expected to go home with most of it but the crowd ate it up. I mean, the acorns were boiled not nearly long enough to remove all the tannins, but at least one person was loving them anyhow...said they were "addictive". The biggest praise Cambridge acorns have ever received.

Hot potato 2 is coming up. To that end, I will hop the apple fence one last time tonight to see if there are any stragglers left on the ground that have not been beaten too badly by the frosts, and I will step foot into Trader Joe's and plunk down some cash for the cheapest wine in town. Hopefully I'll also find some time to tickle the ivories too. I am working my way through the Goldberg Variations..see how many times I can cycle through the full set this winter. Anything to procrastinate the manual grunt work required for moving into the new apartment.

Not quite Thoreau (thorough)

Thoreau recorded extensive notes of what was flowering/fruiting/etc when. In that vein I'll offer a highly abbreviated recording: black nightshade still to be found, as well as burdock and lamb's quarters and apples.