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Over the last few weeks we have been busy setting up our garden for the coming season. We finally groundhog-proofed the veggie patch when we completed fence construction last weekend. This was imperative, as the groundhogs’ favorite treats last year were emerging green seedlings, of which many now fill our beds. Since planting our first seeds in mid-April, spinach, radishes, peas, lettuce, mustards, beets, carrots, chicories and green onions have peeked through the warming soil. They each emerge at different rates and must be tended to as they grow. One chore was thinning our dense plantings of radish and spinach, and after doing so Tuesday, we enjoyed our first meals of the year from garden produce. Our tender baby radishes only revealed a hint of their pungent spicy flavor, while the delicate, crispy spinach leaves could be enjoyed with their tinged pink roots still attached. We made two delicious salads from these baby vegetables, and were proud to let not one leaf go to the compost pile.

Yesterday we embarked on a much-anticipated journey in search of the elusive morel mushroom. By mid-morning Alex, Ben, and I headed south of Rochester in hopes that we would spend the afternoon romping around the woods, eyes and noses to the humus, and come back with our arms full of this gourmet mycological delight. In the car we studied trees, knowing that morels tend to pop up around dead American elms and cottonwoods, and thrive by live poplars and apple trees. We examined glossy pictures of bark and committed to memory leaf shapes and sizes, and once in the woods, we sought out what our best guesses led us to believe were the proper trees. We would see a large dead tree and scurry over to it, comparing the details of the bark, and looking for signs of fallen elm leaves. But tree identification turns out to be much more challenging than wild food identification, and although we spent significant time poking around under what we came to believe was a massive fallen elm tree, to our chagrin, we did not come home with mushrooms. We discussed the conditions of the forest floor, “was it just too dry today” or “was that tree actually just a large oak?” In the end we determined that our instincts felt right on this isolated spot, that it would be worth another look on a different day, and even though we could not be certain that our fallen tree was in fact an elm, we decided that in mushroom hunting, until your suspicions are confirmed by the discovery of a brainy-capped morel, this is what you have to continue to depend on, intuition and 20/12 vision of course.

On our way from one promising morel spot to another however, we stumbled upon perfect territory for the also gourmet ramp and fiddlehead fern. Ever since leaving the Hudson Valley, where I had the fortune to spend hours daily foraging for Upstate Farms, a farm and distribution company that sold wild food and produce to the topmost restaurants in NYC, I have yet to see ramps in such abundance. Back in Red Hook we would hike into the woods with a shovel across our shoulders balancing two wooden bushel baskets on either end of the handle. This particular area was inundated with what seemed like a never-ending supply of ramps, and after filling our baskets we cautiously placed these heavy bushels on our shovel ends, and like tight-rope walkers crossed the creek and emerged from the forest bearing precious loads. Well yesterday’s discovery appeared to be an heretofore untouched ramp grove– more lush than anything I had seen before. And the wild onions just blanketed the forest floor. We shared a trowel and dug enough to cook, give away, and pickle. Meanwhile I also harvested a small bag of fiddlehead ferns, whose habitat too is often along creek beds.

So exhausted from the day of hunting and gathering, we came home and wanted to execute a nice but easy meal made from these fresh woodsy treats. We also decided to open a special bottle of wine, a California Zinfandel blend I bought Ben for Christmas, and focus on tasting the wine alone, rather than seeking out a perfect pairing for our light meal. Despite the bigness and high alcohol content of the wine, we were shocked as to how well it paired with our delicate meal. In most literature and shall I call it hearsay about food and wine pairing, one would never recommend such a full-bodied wine to compliment a meal of sautéed veggies and delicate pasta, yet these wild foods sautéed in a nice olive oil and served with trofie pasta and Parmigiano, held up to the wine because of the depth and richness of their flavor. They were so fresh and their vegetal flavors so bold that with the help of the rich cheese and oil, they cut into the tannins of the big Zin, and the fruitiness of the wine accentuated the sweetness of the vegetables. For dessert we had sweets from Savoia Bakery and savored every last drop of Ridge’s 2009 Pagani Ranch Zinfandel from Sonoma County.