Green Options

I’ve always loved the idea of foraging for food, but the idea of dying from a poisonous mushroom overdose has always put me off from plucking edibles from the ground for dinner. Luckily, you can often find a carefully selected array of wild and exotic mushrooms at grocery stores or farmers markets. Sometimes, when there’s potential for serious injury, I find it’s best to leave things up to the professionals.

I found this gorgeous array of exotic mushrooms at the Sporeboys stall at London’s beautiful Broadway Market. Mushrooms are easy to cook, good for you, and have a deliciously rich, almost meaty taste that’s a great vegetarian substitute. I made a simple sautéed mushroom mix with olive oil, herbs, and cheese that tasted great on toast as well as pasta. It could also top a number of other dishes that you’ve already got in your kitchen. It’s simple, versatile, and oh so tasty…and no fear of poison! What more could you ask for?

Here’s an easy way to cook your mushrooms and a number of ways to serve them too:

Eco-activists often insist that vegetarianism is the only truly earth-friendly diet for humans.  On the other hand, there are many people, honestly trying to live as green as possible, who are not yet ready to take that step completely.  Others of us find that we are just not healthy without some animal protein in our diet, and that there is some logic to the argument than humans are biologically omnivorous.

If you are a meat-eater, whatever your personal reasons may be, the problem still remains — the beef industry is a nightmare.  From enormous factory farms raising animals in horrific conditions, to growth hormones interfering with our bodies, to mad cow disease resulting from herbivores being fed ground-up brains of their kin, to the ecological devastation…  We simply cannot allow ourselves to support this industry by buying its products.

So what is the conscientious carnivore to do?

What’s a local foodie to do if you don’t have the right spot for a garden? Maybe you just don’t exude the green thumb karma and enthusiasm for growing your own seasonal fare? Or what if there isn’t a farmers’ market nearby for one-stop local food shopping?

Join Charlene Torchia and be a local food forager, developing connections, routines and routes for regularly traversing your area and buying direct from area family farms and food artisans. “I call it my ‘food run’,” explains Torchia, who runs the eco-friendly bed and breakfast, Journey Inn, in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, about an hour from St. Paul/Minneapolis. “Once a week I make my rounds and stock up on key supplies such as meat from Anderson Farm, goat cheese, organic parmesan from Eau Galle Cheese, apples and cider. Vegetables come from a local CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – and I can even buy bread through them as they grow and grind their own wheat.”

With no dirt under the fingernails required, Torchia exemplifies the spirit that if you’re passionate about the local foods movement and supporting sustainable agriculture, you can find direct sources for bootie in your area. Try plugging your zip code into the Local Harvest database for a starter list of area options. “It’s all about relationships that go beyond shopping transactions,” Torchia adds. “Friendships developed from my food run. I feel part of the community and my B&B guests love hearing the personal story of where each breakfast ingredient came from.”

Here are some starter tips for becoming a local foods forager in your area:

This recipe is an inexpensive, seasonal treat that’s almost too good to be true. From “Wildman” Steve Brill’s Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, we get a sumptuous, healthy, seasonal, local, organic dessert that also encourages the removal of an invasive species. For the green gourmand, could life get any better?

Late summer brings many treats, but my favorite is ripe wild blackberries. Blackberries are an abundant

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