Wilderness Kitchen #4: Morel Foraging and Meal Prep at Camp Earnest

Welcome to our fourth immersive weekend devoted to teaching you how to see, identify and make use of common wild foods, particularly the morel mushrooms that bloom at this time of year. Not only will we discover our region's seasonal bounty, but we'll prepare improvised meals together and have plenty of time to learn from chef, author and naturalist Maria Finn, author of Forage. Gather. Feast.

We will hear from a number of visiting local experts on how to forage, cultivate, and prepare wild, feral and local foods in the beautiful setting of Camp Earnest.

Cooking isn't all recipes. In fact much of the joy in cooking is gaining the confidence to improvise, to fully embrace the creative process – you start with what’s available from the land, garden and local farms, then look for the meal suggesting itself through these ingredients. This is working with food from the perspective of culinary impressario (and east bay resident) Samin Nosrat, with her philosophy around balancing salt, fat, acid and heat. The emphasis is on pleasure and flavor more than a step by step process.

We’ll forage for wild morel mushrooms in burn zones near Camp Earnest and look for other local wild delicacies like pine tips and nuts, watercress, and stinging nettles.The weekend will also include a talk by our local biodynamic farmer and mushroom grower Jordan Lowery of Dambacher Farms, who will explain how, and why to cultivate mushrooms and the best uses for them.We’ll wildcraft cocktails and mocktails, make teas for lucid dreaming, try mushroom extracts and more!

Saturday night we'll set up the silent disco on the "lawn" in front of the lodge and have a dance party, with free time for hot tub under the stars and a visit to our Finnish style sauna.

Glad you asked.

We are grateful when you pitch in wherever possible with bussing, washing dishes, trash and recycling duty and generally keeping camp tidy. So please bring a spirit of community and caring for one another.

Bring your own water bottle and metal cup and reuse these all weekend. Reusing cups really helps cut down on dirty dishes.

Bring layers of clothes, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, camping gear (if necessary) and snacks or drinks you might like to share. We may travel uphill or downhill and weather can vary a lot. We are at 3,500 feet of elevation, but there's good foraging at lower elevations and all the way up to about 7,000 feet.

We ask that you please carpool in as few vehicles as possible. Parking is limited. The drive is just 140 miles or about 2.5 hours from SF.

Please remember to be super fire safe.

Our friend Maria Finn is a chef, author, and multi-sensory storyteller who lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California with her two cats, her truffle dog, and a native oyster garden.

She founded Flora & Fungi Adventures to connect people to the natural world through food and wildcrafting and offers camps in California, the San Juan Islands and Hesketh Island off Homer, Alaska.

Her cookbook on wild foods, “Forage, Gather, Feast” is forthcoming in spring 2024 on Sasquatch Books. She plans and executes private dining events and food pop-ups with a focus on regenerative foods and menus that tell the stories of the natural world. Her clients include Center for Humane Technology, Esalen, Gallery 836M, the Above/Below Kelp Collective, Good People Dinners, Odd Salon, and the Ocean Genome Atlas Project.

Maria was chef-in-residence for Stochastic Labs, a residency and incubator for artists, scientists, and tech innovators in Berkeley. She was a fellow in the first creative cohort of the Design Science Studio and Living Systems Collaboratory with the Buckminister Fuller Society. She’s been an Artist-in-Residence at Autodesk, Pier 9 maker space where she created a Wildcrafting map of the San Francisco Bay that’s on display at the SF Exploratorium map room. Other residencies include writing Between the Vines, The Marin Headlands Center for the Arts and Mesa Refuge.

She’s authored numerous articles, essays and books and has told stories for The Moth Mainstage at the Museo del Barrio in New York City and the Castro Theater in San Francisco among many other places. To listen to her stories or read articles visit www.mariafinn.com.

OUR ITINERARY & MENUS (subject to much improvisation).

Friday, May 16th

3:00pm Welcome Snacks:

Wildcrafted Cocktails & Wild Foods Grazing Platters

Fir Tip Gin & Tonics, Candy Cap Bourbon Old Fashions, Elderflower-Meyer lemon and ume plum mocktail, Newsome Harlow Sauvignon Blanc and Big John Zinfandel

Smoked and pickled oyster mushrooms, wild mushroom pate, candied pine cones w/Point Reyes soft cheeses, charcuterie

6:30 Dinner

TO START:

Wild and tame salad greens with shaved snap peas, yellow beets, pickled bladderwrack, sunflower seeds and kombu-mulberry vinaigrette.

MAINS:

Morel risotto w/pecorino Romano and soft herbs

Halibut roasted in chive- green garlic butter and served w/stinging nettle-pistachio pistou and preserved lemon-anchovy sauces

Focaccia w/three-sided leek infused olive oil

TO FINISH:

Truffle honey panna cotta w/toasted bay laurel nuts and Sakura cherry blossoms

Saturday, May 17th

9:00 Breakfast

Candy cap mushroom granola, Strauss yogurt, rose petal infused honey, raspberry chamomile jam and fresh raspberries and blueberries

Dambacher farm mushroom savory clafoutis w/thyme and Thai basil, and gruyere cheese

Mixed greens w/charred wild leek and Dijon dressing

Eric Davis’ local sourdough w/porcini & pine-tip butter

Saturday Lunch To Go – We will have in the field while foraging.

Farro cold salad, black and green olive, toasted pine nut, parsley, EVOO and balsamic

Shared and torn country loaves, assortment of cheeses and spreads

Satumas, gala apples, black plums

Saturday around 3:00pm

Serving The Jordan – an ever-changing cocktail or mocktail dedicated to our local permaculture mushroom grower. Usually involves turkey tail and reishi tincture, something unexpected, maybe a little spicey or bitter – though Jordan is neither of those really. Jordan will be giving a talk while we enjoy these. We never really know what he’ll talk about, but it’s always fascinating.

Dinner:

TO START:

House made guacamole

House made balsamic medium salsa, macerated Berkeley tie-dye tomatoes, jalapeños, organic blue and yellow tortilla chips.

Romaine and dandelion greens salad, artichoke hearts, hemp hearts, roasted pistachios, powdered dry chanterelle blue cheese dressing

MAINS:

Coconut, turmeric and ginger braised bison short ribs w/porcini ragout over buckwheat polenta.

Coconut, turmeric and ginger marinated Pumfu w/porcini ragout over buckwheat polenta (VG).

TO FINISH:

Karin's torn banana bread w/whole Tahitian vanilla bean, walnut, whipped cream, local bee pollen, red Korean chili flake.

Sunday, May 18th

9:00 Breakfast

Buttermilk pancakes w/fresh blueberries or bananas, organic maple syrup.

Organic egg shakshuka w/New Mexico green chili sauce

Toast station with fresh sourdough, butter, ghee and assorted jams.

SAFE ONWARD TRAVELS!

Please email us at least 72 hours in advance if you have any dietary restrictions and we'll do our best to accommodate them.

Host or Publisher Raman Frey