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The Force That Drives The Flower
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect,...
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My Father’s Perspective
I am working on my MFA creative nonfiction thesis about food foraging. I asked my father to talk about my first experiences with wild food. One of my pleasures was taking Lauren out in the backpack,...
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Chickweed
I’m a member of People’s Coop and every week they send me an email about their Wednesday farmer’s market. (Yes, it goes on through the winter.) This week they featured chickweed, which is pretty silly....
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Missive from the Mountain
We are halfway through the winter here in the Northwest, receiving our annual ‘False Spring’ where the air begins to feel warmer, and you might even see people wearing shorts or flip flops around town....
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Cheryl Strayed Discusses Solitude and Suffering
What was not compelling about Monday night’s talk at PSU with Cheryl Strayed? The 44-year-old author of bestselling memoir, Wild, took the stage this week in an event that was coordinated through the...
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Milkweed
When I was six years old or younger, I made my father eat milkweed fluff. I know I was six or younger because we moved into our second house in the middle of my sixth year. In my brain I can see the...
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Snow Report
Eric has been trying to get me on a snowboard since we first started dating, but it has taken three years of being in a relationship together for me to trust him enough to try it. I tell him this as we...
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Eliza in Spring
When I was in middle school, my hobby was writing terrible historical fiction. There was the time-traveling doomed romance on the Titanic, and the Oregon Trail epic with no plot. But the tale I thought...
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The Salad Days
It’s officially spring and spring means green things. John Kallas’s Edible Wild Plants has been very helpful in identifying a few tasty greens available at this time in the Pacific NW. The one I eat...
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Cherry Blossom
There once was a girl named Rosie and a girl named Birdie, and they loved each in secret. Rosie was the daughter of a pastor and Birdie was the daughter of an astronomer, both men who believed that the...
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Beach Fire Cooking
“We should roast some mussels over the fire.” A middle aged couple sat on a log on the Northern California beach with their two adult children, drinking beer and smoking weed. They had built a fierce...
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Cream of Maggot Soup
Last Saturday Eric and I went mushroom hunting in Sandy River Delta Park. Our goal was to find infamously elusive morels, but after a couple hours we had nothing and Eric had a headache. He lay down on...
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Why I Forage
I am not a survivalist. I don’t foresee a future when commercial food will not be available and food foraging will be a critical skill. The world is not going to end before the sun swells into a red...
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Japanese Knotweed
I need to find some knotweed in Portland. I’m particularly fascinated with it right now and it tastes good. Most people don’t want to find knotweed. It’s a terrible invasive. Japanese knotweed is so...
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Oregon’s Connection To Turkish Protesters
What began as a peaceful assembly and demonstration to protect one of Istanbul’s last green spaces has escalated into a violent crackdown on protesters and has swelled to a larger protest against...
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Ode to the Bluffs
The bluffs was one of the first places I ever went in Portland, back when I had no concept of the city or its layout. My friend Kirsten took me there, and we walked along its edge overlooking the train...
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Food Foraging Pedalpalooza Ride
Eric and I decided it was time that we led a Pedalpalooza tour. For those of you who aren’t usual Portland cyclists, Pedalpalooza is a three-week bike festival in June. […]
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Ease Your Pain with Plantain
I’m not particularly interested in herbalism and the medicinal value of wild plants. I’m into foraging for the food. My outlook on medicine is strictly science-based and chemically liberal, so […]
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god is red
As a young woman, my mother’s long auburn hair swept the back of her thighs and the wind pulled it behind her like the dark, red scream of a horse’s mane.
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Backyard Foraging
I found Backyard Foraging by Ellen Zachos while browsing through Broadway Books. I’ve read many food foraging guides, most with far more detail than this book, so I didn’t expect […]
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