Molasses? I don’t eat any part of the mole.
Posted on March 12, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Community, Social Event, Portland Region | 2 Comments
When the Wild Foods Potluck first began, noone could have imagined the sheer creativity of those involved. In the six months since it began, Portland has been able to sit down to dinner with wild plants, wild game, garden greens, and dumpster gleans.
I personally might have to say the last Wild Foods Potluck was the biggest (forty people!) and most amazing yet, on a table (well, okay, a piano bench) stocked with:
- Mountain Lion Chocolate Molé. Made from real moles.
- Chantrelles and Wild Rice.
- Handmade Tortillas. Stone-Ground Masa from Hominy.
- Dried Nori from our wonderful coastline.
Now then, the Potlucks are more than dinner, they are a chance for the whole Portland Aboriginal Lifeways community to get together. Sometimes the highlanders from Hood River come down and visit, bearing bear, proferring pears, or carrying curried potatoes. The tradition is a good one, and after and throughout dinner, people make valuable connections and relax in the company of old friends.
A direct result of the potlucks has been a real connection between food dishes, their wild ingredients, and people.
Here in wild-foodless February, Thaddeus Koster fries some Salmon Ginger Cakes, with fillets from a forty pound Chinook salmon caught by Tony Kimbro last October, cooking in lamb fat from a sheep processed by Shaun Deller and Jessica Palmer last fall, with green onions gleaned by your truly and walnuts from the tree down the street.
Although the Potlucks are certainly about food and people, I believe that their success comes from that fundamental ingredient of the human experience that many of us crave today– connections and true community. We live in a different world today than our foraging ancestors did. Nevertheless, every time a hungry soul takes a small bite of Darren’s raw chocolate or Tom and Julia’s sweet kelp pickles, the whole Chee Siwash community takes one giant leap into living well.
Night Kayaking on the Willamette
Posted on March 12, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Portland Region | 2 Comments
Night-kayaking in the city is that perfect juxtaposition of the city and the wilderness. The last few months we have taken to throwing our skin boats in the water under the Hawthorne Bridge and paddling out to Ross Island.
At first, trucks, strange smells come from the highway. As we slip slowly into the realm of the duck, the sounds of the city fade away. I pass by the massive concrete supports for the Ross Island Bridge and lean back in awe. Though the city lights are off in the distance, my innocent self is lost in Middle-Earth, watching the immense stone toes of ancient kings slide past.
Pete and Adria paddle on ahead towards Ross Island, approaching quietly as we anticipate night wildlife on the river. Before we are even paying attention, a sharp slap cracks the water and the darkness; a beaver has warned us we won’t be catching it tonight. That’s how the night goes– beavers hit the water with their tails, and geese honk and whistle along the dark banks. All I can see is their white undersides bobbing on the shore.
Pete and I cruise up slowly and then at the chosen moment, spring our kayaks forward, our paddlestrokes bloodthirsty as we chase our geese down. They wait until the last possible moment to take off, then scoot forward on the water only ten feet before stopping again– avoiding potentially fatal collisions with unseen objects in the night.
The water is protected by Ross Island’s shores, and so we float and meditate in the warm wind, gently flowing back downriver, and towards the dock.
The city lights come back, twinkling as though they believe they have the same dignity as the stars. Floating the black waterline on the Willamette River, I understand.
Horns, Ropes, and Whips (Fun with Kelp)
Posted on March 9, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Pacific Coast | 6 Comments
Our kelp pickling adventure was slightly slimy and filled with friends. Sound like fun?
It began with a lovely spring day that broke the grey Northwestern fog ceiling. We strode out onto the beach with legs jelloey from the drive, and felt the unfamiliar earth and sand under our toes. And in a quick moment, I noticed a large black streak laying on the beach in the distance, looking for all the world like a beached sea serpent.
But no, it was a couple of stipes of bullwhip kelp, that wonderful sea vegetable that often washes up on shore during the winter on our Oregon Coast. It lives offshore in protected waters and often forms reefs or forests underwater. It long stipes, or tubular and groovy trunks connect it from its ‘roots’ which anchor it on the ocean floor. The top end is a large gaseous bladder that floats upwards and from it waves all the lovely long fronds that we think of as seaweed.
So we gathered a few, and frolicking commenced. Pete grabbed one end of the thirteen foot stipe and began to work it as a lariat, only hitting himself once before stopping, so of course the rest of us joined in. We converted the lasso into a jump rope and then eventually cutting off the anchor and bulb ends to save for halibut fishing line. We also saved the fronds to fry for seaweed muchies and the large end of the stipes to pickle the the next day.
Brian cut one open and tried out its use as a musical instrument, and with a few more horns involved, we managed a sort of seaweed marching band. Here’s Adria playing the digeridoo.
Well, kelp aside, we hiked up to Ekkoli State Park and munched on the spring greens, which are here in hordes: wood sorrel, miner’s lettuce, and then delicious peeled horsetail shoots. The horsetails aren’t good for long, so we ate as many as we could find.
Kelp + Elderberries = Pickles
Posted on March 9, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Pacific Coast | Leave a Comment
A whole bunch of folks showed up at my place to pickle the kelp we gathered (a Dancing Hawk workshop, technically). So with this small army of people dying to produce a peck of pickles, we quickly washed, peeled and chopped up our kelp.
Then we mixed up a couple of good pickling mixes, one sweet, and another salty. Our ingredients?
• Elderberry vinegar from a batch of wine that didn’t make the team
• Good Old NaCl for the salty batch
• Sugar from the high steppes and shelves of the grocery store
• Hot Peppers, Mustard Seeds, Garlic, etc…
Popped em into the pressure canner (easier and more safe) for ten minutes at 6 psi, and let them cool off.
We also kept about nine quarts uncanned, for they are going to be fermenting slowly in the dark and mysterious corners of the house for a few weeks. I have great expectations for our kelp.
The best things of all– another great community event, and it took hardly any kelp at all to produce about 20 quarts of pickles. Now that’s not bad.
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