WILD FOOD FEAST & FORAGING on ORCAS ISLAND, DOE BAY RESORT

JUNE 4, SAT.

4-COURSE WILD FOOD FEAST 

w/ CHEF Abigael Birrell and Jennifer 

Doe Bay Resort Café

Orcas Island, WA

Executive Chef Abigael Birrell and renown Pacific foraging expert and author Jennifer Hahn will be hosting a 4-course wild foods dinner June 4 at the Doe Bay Cafe. The meal will highlight the bounty of native foods in the San Juans, with the possibility of a foraging workshop earlier in the day - please email office@doebay.com if you are interested in participating in the workshop.

Saturday evening, the amazing hand-crafted meal will be preceded by a brief reading and slide show presentation by Jennifer Hahn.  Hahn is the author of "Pacific Feast: A Cook's Guide to West Coast Foraging and Cuisine."

RESERVATIONS: As always, seating is limited, so be certain to make your Cafe reservation in advance by calling 360-376-8059. 

Web: http://www.doebay.com/calendar.html

WILD EDIBLES BEACH & FOREST WALK 

with JENNIFER HAHN

  

JUNE 4, 2011  ~~~ 11:00 am - 1:30 pm   

Fee: $15-20 sliding scale.  

Meet: Doe Bay Cafe, Doe Bay Resort, Orcas Island, WA

Learn about the delicious, local, power-house foods of the coast--wild seaweeds, wild greens, native edible ferns, flowers, roots and shoots! Wild food picked by your own hands doesn't get MORE LOCAL...or FUN! Join wild forager, WWU Professor  Jennifer Hahn for a few hours low-tide and forest exploration. Jennifer is the author of best-seller PACIFIC FEAST: A Cook's Guide to West Coast Foraging and Cuisine (Skipstone, 2010). She will teach you how to identify and sustainably harvest the "food at your feet"! This hands-on class is for ages 10 and up. We'll meet at Doe Bay at the Cafe, then we'll carpool to our harvest site. Dress for all weather. Bring a sack lunch, water bottle and your sense of delicious adventure!

Where The Wild Foods Are

Don your nettle-proof gloves, grab a scissors and grocery bag and head for the green hills grocery! Here’s a tasty romp in the Northwest woods to gather delicious wild greens. Best of all—sustainably. “Foraging with Jennifer Hahn” is a short video, 2 ½ minutes. Videographer, Mark Mulligan, of "The Herald,” Everett, WA did the "shooting of the rooting."  

It’s a nibble of spring. If you want to learn how to forage sustainably for wild greens, seaweed, or mushrooms, take a class with Jennifer--a seasoned forager! Check Events above. This spring/summer Jennifer offers: sea veggie foraging by sea kayak (http://www.elakah.com/), Seaweed Cuisine (http://www.foodcoop.com/).

“Personal foraging class,” anyone? Set up a private class with Jennifer. If dates don’t jive with your schedule, arrange a two-hour sustainable wild foraging class for eight pals--$25 each. How about wild greens, seaweeds or mushrooms? Or a wild feast cooking class, after our baskets or kayak decks are brimming?

Meanwhile, tuck in your dinner napkin and imbibe in "WHERE THE WILD FOODS ARE”. Award-winning writer, Jackson Holtz (author of “Fly, Colton, Fly: The True Story of the Barefoot Bandit”) begins: 

“Jennifer Hahn sees more than the forest for the trees. She sees dinner. From ferns come fiddleheads. From trees, sap for syrup or blossoms for a fritter. From the forest floor, delicate mushrooms and lemon-flavored wood sorrel….”

         

After two hours of woods and wetland exploring, with baskets brimming, Jackson and I returned to my kitchen for après foraging fun. We blanched nettles and lady fern fiddleheads, diced wood sorrel, turned roasted dandelion roots into buttery coffee-flavored ice cream, and fluffed wild and farm greens with pickled red onions and shallot-walnut-vinaigrette.

       

Here's the menu of chef recipes—all found in PACIFIC FEAST--that inspired our wild table:

Oysters with Wood Sorrel Sauce
by Chef Jerry Traunfeld, Poppy, Seattle
 http://www.poppyseattle.com/

Shepherd’s Salad of Wild & Farm Greens
 by Chef Cathy Whims, Nostrana, Portland
http://www.nostrana.com/

Nettle Hazelnut Pesto
 by Chef Greg Higgins, Higgins Restaurant & Bar, Portland
http://www.higginsportland.com/

Roasted Dandelion Root Ice Cream
 by The Herbfarm Founder Ron Zimmerman, The Herbfarm, Woodinville, WA
http://www.theherbfarm.com/

Pick Lady Fern fiddleheads that are tightly coiled and less than six inches (one hand height). Rub gently to remove "brown scale-like fur" under tap water. Simmer naked Lady Fern fiddleheads for a few minutes before serving. Heating destroys the fern's thiaminase--an enzyme that reduces our body's essential store of VitaminB.

ENJOY the spring greens. While you’re at it, remember to promote: preservation through the palate. Let’s pick as if there is a tomorrow. Forage and eat sustainably. Let’s anchor this vision: our great great great great grandchildren munching the wild flavors of fiddleheads, too.

May we find the earth delicious for a long time!