My Favorite Meal of the Year: Morels and Ramps

Yesterday, I ate my all time favorite meal of the year. It is only possible to eat this meal once or twice a year. Three times if you are really lucky -- which I may be this year.



The meal I am referring to is fresh morel mushrooms and ramps (wild leeks) sauteed in butter with red pepper, salt and fresh garden sage served with rice. It is one of the simplest meals I ever make and also one of the most delicious and uniquely satisfying.

Morels are one of the most famous of the wild mushrooms. Rare, elusive and only found growing for a few weeks a year, often deep in the woods. They can appear overnight with just the right combination of warm, humid weather, sunshine and the correct soil makeup.

A morel hunter must develop a keen eye for finding these mushrooms as they poke their multi-toned brown heads above and through the leaf litter that surrounds them. Often you can look at an area of moresl for a long time before you actually see the mushrooms right in front of you. Once you learn to see them, you can spot them easily, from a distance and often out of the corner of your eye despite their camoflaged appearance.

Since I just moved from the deep woods of southeastern Ohio to the city of Dayton, I thought for sure my annual spring meal of ramps and morels would be impossible to come by. But my parents live on a beautiful 3 acres with nice big trees and the biggest patch of morels I have ever seen in my life. They are prolific and growing right next to the driveway under a giant old ash tree. My mom told me they were poking their heads out of the soil, and I quickly went to investigate. I found 20-30 morels, some as large as the mouse for my computer.

With a little rain tomorrow, they could balloon up even bigger. One year, the morels here grew as large as a coffee mug.

The ramps or wild leeks show their leaves early in the spring in the underbrush of the still leafless forest, looking much like a lily or any other non-descript leafy green. But when you pick them, they give off a pungent onion-y smell and their flavor is unique. I always leave the bulb and eat the leaf though some people I know dig up the whole plant. The leaves are so good by themselves, I see no reason to take the whole plant for myself.

If you are lucky enough to have some morels and ramps, you can prepare them as follows for a uniquely and deeply nourishing spring dinner. Please note that my mother is very allergic to morels. I have never met anyone else with this allergy, but be aware that it can happen.


The Best Meal of the Year

Soak morels in salt water to remove bugs (at least 1 hour)
Slice morels into 1/4" thick slices
Heat butter to very hot.
Add morels, crushed red pepper, celtic sea salt and sliced fresh sage to hot butter.
Cook for no more than 1 minute on high heat.
Turn off heat and stir in sliced ramp leaves, stirring until residual heat has wilted them.

Serve over brown rice.

The Bones: A Poem

I don't usually plan to write a poem. Usually it just comes to me out of the blue. Sometimes I don't even know I have written one until I look back over my journal and there it is. It's almost like I am channeling something greater than me. I am not an actor, only a vessel through which action (the writing of the poem) takes place. It's a little unnerving really since it is almost as if I am not present. I discovered this poem (or half of it) in my journal about a week ago. I loved the raw rough feel of it, the connection to food, the juicy body parts -- and wrote the other half a little more consciously over the past week. It feels true and right -- the distillation of the experience of trying to understand the story of my life, which feels alternately meaningfully huge and silently hidden. Thanks for reading.

The Bones

I’m looking for the meat
For the dark, sour substance of the thing
The juicy bits and morsels that slip
Between the cracks
Get covered in dust
Or rot in the corner

I’m looking for the story
Underneath the story
Looking for the secrets you never whisper
(even in the softest voice)
for the moments you wish you could take back
and the words that echo and slap
my face the moment you utter them

i don’t want to hear the pretty lies
i don’t care about politeness
or the carefully stacked house of cards
i only want truth
a declaration of reality
a single shot at redemption maybe
but always truth

i’m looking for the center of the thing
i want to suck this marrow from the bones
swish the essence in my mouth
swallow and digest
i want to dip the tips in a salty brine
that stops sugar in its tracks
and instantly puckers the lips of your sweetest smile

i want to pry apart your insides
inspect all the parts
dissect your spirit while i hold my breath
i need to see it all
i need to touch every piece
every sorrow, every joy, every pain,
every fear and insecurity
i want them all
laid out and perfectly arranged
on the table while i eat my breakfast

i have to see farther and deeper
peeling away the layers and layers of soft rubbery fat
fatty spirit, fatty soul, fatty body
we must shed this all and stand naked
here in the spotlight
facing each other in a house of mirrors
we have to see everything

i want to cut you down the middle
inspect the heart that beats there
in your chest
touch it, measure it, poke my finger around the insides
i need to understand the way it thumps
the way it swells and shrinks
creating pockets and shadows in between
the folds of skin

i want to touch the stomach and spleen
squeeze the liver to see what you’re made of
taste the ovaries
and gather the testes into my water glass
i want to see you all
pulled apart, like chicken bones
wings sucked dry, emptied of all meaning
in a pile of downy feathers

[maybe then i can begin to move]

i want to sift through the layers
peel back all the skin
hear and see and devour my story
until there’s nothing left but a heap of
meaningless words
a series of images and sounds
that do not even slightly resemble me

in the end i will shit all this
into a freshly dug hole
cover it with leaves
and plant a tree

in the end i will bury the bodies
in the soft brown earth
and plant spring bulbs

i will swallow the sorrow
pour it into the earth,
muster a river that will
smooth the edges of all these bones
carry the feathers to the sea
and rip these anchors from the flesh of my body

i will model this fear after my deepest hurt
shape it into loaves of pain
then look away quickly
as i heave them into the ocean
to dissolve in their salty, rocking tomb

i can’t carry this story any longer
it wants to be compost
to simmer in the sun until it is nothing
but soil, plain old dirt
that will gently cover someone else’s bones
and stories and feathers someday
the meat of the daffodil bulbs and oak tree
will then work relentlessly to break apart those bones
uncover those stories and i will be free

A New Home :)

I haven't posted in a while because I've been in the process of moving . . . again. I've moved everything I own into my parents' house in Dayton, O. It feels good to be here, even though I feel a little funny moving back into my parents house and wouldn't have believed it if you had told me 6 months ago that I would be moving back to southwest Ohio. Funny how life takes you down many paths you never thought it would.

I actually feel really really really relieved to have all my stuff moved into my parents place. Things have been so topsy turvy for me in the past couple (many?) years that having my things here actually makes me feel more grounded than I have in a long time. Like now that my things are all safe in the basement, I can feel more free to roam or settle in or boomerang back and forth between my many different interests. In moving this most recent time, I began to notice a pattern (finally) emerging in my collections -- kitchen stuff, fabric/yarn/sewing supplies, BOOKS and rocks. These are the things I collect. Most of these things are heavy things, which I attribute to my airy Libra self needing to be brought back down to earth from all the flying about I do in my mind, and across the planet. Did I mention how relieved I feel to have all my stuff at my parents house? I love my little dungeon (basement) bedroom/living room/bathroom and the beautiful yard, trees, flowers (blue carpets of squill are the most recent bloomers) and soon the morels will come up under the giant ash trees that dot the property.

I will be starting my annual spring raw food fast soon. I will be posting recipes to go along with it. Simple guides to using raw foods to cleanse the system at the start of a new year. Last year I did this raw food fast and I felt amazing, energetic, clear -- all my muscles felt clean, revived, energized, my mind felt the same. I have treated my body poorly this winter -- getting out of shape, over-indulging my sweet tooth and generally just eating my way through feeling bored, broke and somewhat ill. Blech!!

I will also be starting work on the farms next week -- I will be working primarily on two CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) called Smaller Footprint and Wild Soil and sometimes at a third CSA called Heart Beet Farms. I can't wait to get my hands dirty and be outside on a regular basis. This winter has lasted far too long and the spring is inching along so slowly, it's about to drive me crazy.

Check back soon for updates on the farms, raw food recipes/spring cleanse and a little story about buzzards.