Today i sit, steaming mug of turmeric & ginger bliss in my hands,  gazing out onto the wintry scene unfolding outside my window; i ponder the ways that my ancestors survived days like this. Oh, I've dabbled in living outside in winter, spending freezing nights huddled around a fire that couldn't quite penetrate the cold in  my bones in the tipis in Oregon; feeding endless logs to woodstoves in houses without walls in Tennessee; schoolbusses & yomes in North Carolina; straw-bale wonders in Northern California; wet winters in Hawaii where i wished for a woodstove to dry out beside.  Yes, we've tried winter in many structures. Now i sit behind solid walls of wood, with insulation, even! and oh, do i give thanks! i watch the Eastern Bluebirds, all ruffled up, 1 female and 4 males; and as the wind whips the snow into swirling furies of cold, these birds are much more concerned with mating and worms, than warmth.
     And my mind goes to my ancestors. How did they know how to preserve food through the cold winter months? How many mistakes led them to understand the mysteries of fermentation. And by what great good fortune do i find myself here, in this place and time? As everyone speeds forward in ever increasing lines of progress, i hold space for the stillness, the quiet infinitesimal movements of the micro-herds working for me, for life, in the jars and carboys that i've chosen to call my friends; transforming  carbohydrates into complex chains of sugars; sugars into alcohol; seeds into food; milk into medicine; preserving the abundance of my hard work in spring, summer and fall, into the things that sustain my family through the winter.
     If you do not yet know these mysteries, i invite you to enter into the food ways of your ancestors. Whatever culture we individually may have come from, we are all human; and every known human culture has a history with fermentation. Discover your roots, take a class, read a book, make some kraut. Begin to know your food and thereby yourself in a more intricate and intimate way.  You will never regret the decision, i promise!
Cheers

     Today my good friend, Kyle Nine Toes, gifted me some of the tastiest treats that Appalachia has to offer: ramps.  Allium tricoccum is a North American species of wild onion widespread across eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Under much debate, ramps are often the target of local poachers, who will go through & harvest an entire patch, bulb & all, rather than leaving most bulbs behind to come up again in subsequent seasons. Kyle handed me an armful of leaves with no bulbs; this is his method of harvesting, ensuring that the patches he tends come up healthy year after year.
     Poking their distinct & delicious heads up through the abundant earth along side these amazingly sweet oniony yummies are morels (Morchella esculenta), my favorite fungi! A meal of ramps & morels sautéed in a little bear fat is one of the most divine & telling apparitions of spring! Ramp pesto, ramp pate', ramp butter, even ramp wine! Everything is better with ramps! And once you've sampled morels, you will never think of mushrooms the same; distinct & delicate & so beautiful!
​     So, go outside & take a hike! Put on your mushroom goggles & drop down on your hands & knees; get dirty & scamper around like the animal that you are. You may be richly rewarded for it in the form of a culinary delight! At the very least you will connect with the amazing living planet of which you are a part. Smell the soil & the flowers; listen to the birds; feel the wind upon your face, eat something wild & know that you are free...