Dafna Kory discovered the delights of jalapeno jam during pre-dinner nibbles at a Thanksgiving gathering. She went out to buy a jar, couldn’t find the mighty spicy condiment anywhere, so she began experimenting with making her own. It became an instant hit among her posse.

At first the self-taught preserver thought her D.I.Y. hobby would just make nice gifts for friends and families. The she moved from San Francisco to South Berkeley, saw the abundance of plums, apples, and lemons growing in her new backyard, and a jamming business was born.

She foraged fruit in a hyper-local fashion. She made batches of jam in her home kitchen. She personally delivered by bike. Demand for her jams grew by word-of-mouth.

Friends who had friends who owned stores began encouraging her to branch out beyond her inner circle. So she started shopping INNA jam (the name is, indeed, a playful pun) to local places like Local 123, Summer Kitchen, Rick and Ann’s Restaurant and The Gardener.

About a year ago, with orders coming in a steady stream, it became clear that Kory, now 28, needed to either gear up and focus on turning her after-hours pastime into a fully-fledged business or scale back and remain a hobbyist. She decided to take the plunge.

A freelance commercial video editor, Kory hasn’t looked back. She began working in a commercial kitchen in North Berkeley, selling her pickles and preserves at events like ForageSF’s Underground Market and the Eat Real Festival, and offering workshops for other D.I.Y.ers.

The UC Berkeley graduate now spends nine months of the year working full-time on her budding food business, and supplements her income in the winter months with editing gigs.

In a year she hopes to devote 100 percent of her work day to INNA jam.  Kory also pickles, though that product line is on hiatus while she ratchets up production to meet demand for her increasingly popular jams.  She delivers locally by bike, ships interstate, and offers an annual, seasonal subscription (a 10-ounce jar retails for $12).

Last year, Kory was featured in a photo spread of local food artisans in the New York Times Magazine Food Issue. Not too shabby for a relative newbie.

A child of Ukrainians who emigrated to Israel, Kory has childhood memories of playing in fields and picking fruits like pomegranates and apricots in the small village north of Tel Aviv she called home. Although she now considers herself a California girl, moving to Orange County at age 10 was a huge culture shock.

She went from being a straight-A student to dropping out of high school. She dabbled in community college down South, and eventually found her way to UC Berkeley, where she designed her own major and began making documentary films before graduating in 2004.  She feels at home in the Bay Area.

We met last week on an unseasonably balmy February afternoon chat in the courtyard at Local 123, where there was ample parking for her bamboo tricycle.

I like transforming raw fruits or vegetables into something totally different while maintaining their essential taste. I find most jams too sweet and most pickles too salty; I like to work with the essence of the produce itself.

There are several local preservers—June Taylor, Blue Chair Fruit, and Happy Girl Kitchen—come to mind. What’s unique about what you do?

I focus on single varieties sourced locally; other local jammakers tend to mix fruits with other ingredients. I’m really trying to pull out the complexity of a variety, whether it’s a Polka raspberry, Seascape strawberry, or Blenheim apricot, and let its uniqueness, natural subtleties, and bright flavors shine.

That’s why when I first started and I foraged a lot of my own fruit, I’d name the jars after their location, like Russel Street Meyer Lemon Jam. The taste of these jams reflected the locations they were grown in. I think you can taste the difference.

And locally I deliver by bike, either my bamboo tricycle or the road bike hitched with a cargo trailer. I think I’m the only one who does that.

It’s a coup to land in an outlet like the New York Times Magazine so early in your career. How has that impacted your business?

Well, let me say first that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was fortunate to be included in the shoot with all the other local food artisans the magazine featured. It was an awesome nod to up-and-coming Bay Area food producers. But it wasn’t like it was a profile of me or my jams.

So, in that sense, I see more of an impact on business when a magazine like Sunset features my product in a photo and write up that says “this is good, buy this jam, now.”

What challenges have you faced launching a business in Berkeley?

It was hard to find a commercial kitchen with enough space for what I do. Making jam takes up a lot of room; you need a place for all those jars, space to prepare fruit, and the pots are big. That’s why I work from 5 p.m. to midnight when I can have the kitchen to myself and spread out.  I found a place on the Ohlone Greenway, so I can bike there, which is key.

Do you have a local food hero or mentor?

I have a lot of respect for June Taylor, she really set the stage for the rest of us. She elevated the art of jam making and eating jam as something of value and importance in this community.

Photos: Courtesy of Sarah Henry, INNA jam

A version of this piece originally appeared on Berkeleyside

With summer here, and the influx of both wild and planted harvestables gaining momentum, I am taking pause to compare season’s past with now.  Aside from what we’ve chosen for our garden, my typical food foraging generally takes place on my own property, harvesting native wild blackberries, volunteer plums, and miner’s lettuce and wild arugula for supple spring salads.  We’re also fortunate to have access to some prime mushroom hunting, and usually pull in a few pounds of porcini and chanterelles each year.

But this year is weird. A chilly, wet, and extra long spring delayed the growth of our starts.  Much of the seeds we purchased ended up being bunk, a huge disappointment especially since we appreciate the back-story of the heirloom company so much.  And we are still smack in the middle of constructing our home, taking away each spare moment that would otherwise be spent keeping up a farm.

And then there is work, the means to the end for all those visions and dreams of a future away from the office.  Which brings me to the main difference of this year from last.  I am not home enough to spend time harvesting my own space.  Instead, my day-to-day reality is in town, driving from workplace A to workplace B to sometimes workplace C.  Last year, I had more leisure to wander around the property, picking this and that and creating interesting dishes, salt mixes, teas, and jams from the loot.  Now, the part of my brain that is inspired by those lucky edible finds lurks behind a drearier headspace of computer screens, files, and phone calls.  But there still remains a glimmer of culinary motivation that blooms on those asphalt and brick laden drives.  Sometimes on the urban trail lies a gift, just waiting to be plucked, prepared, and appreciated.

This concept is nothing new, and in recent years the idea of gleaning excess produce has taken shape in organized efforts throughout the country.   In urban environments, gleaning projects are popping up as well, specifically in Portland, San Francisco’s Urban Gleaning Program in conjunction to the Department of Public Works, and the widely renowned Forage Oakland, spearheaded by Asiya Wadud, that is now seen as a model of true success in solving issues within our current wasteful food system.

My small city’s climate actually offers an abundance of produce, dripping from heavy branches and vines over gates and fences.  I’ve spied grapefruit, Meyer lemons, mulberries, plums, dandelion greens, and even Buddha’s hand citrus in one special front yard.  Along our coastline, people enthusiastically harvest muscles and seaweed.  But one of my favorites, that few seem to revere, is the loquat.  The pale yellow clusters of fuzzy orbs, juxtaposed against the tropical dark green leaves, always catch my eye.  Loquat trees are everywhere, once identified they seem to pop up on every route.  Many parts of the plant are edible, including the leaves that are often dried and brewed as a tea in several Asian cultures.  Some health benefit claims include blood sugar control and insulin production, the release of anti-oxidants, acts as a repertory expectorant, aids in digestion, decreases skin inflammation, and that the loquat has anti-viral properties.

But I love the fruit.  It’s a subtle, delicate sweetness, a firm texture coating large, glassy black seeds that feel like marbles on the tongue.  If I don’t simply enjoy them freshly picked out of my own hand, my second preference is to pickle them with a couple of cloves.  The brining and preserving turns them into something I can only describe as olive-like.  Here is a recipe for your next city harvest.

Pickled Loquats

6 Lbs. loquats
3 cups sugar
3 cups water
3 cups cider vinegar
Several whole cloves

Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a large pot.  Tie the cloves loosely in cheesecloth and add.  Boil 10 minutes then remove spice bundle.  Alternately, you can simply drop 2 or 3 whole cloves into each jar along with the fruit for a more assertive spiced pickle.  Meanwhile, wash the loquats, removing the stem and blossom ends and seeds; do not peel them.  Pack into hot sterilized jars, filling ½-inch from rim with the hot syrup.  Seal and process in water bath 15 minutes.

Have been mulling over just what to say about forageSF founder Iso Rabins ever since I attended one of his underground dinners back in February. The meal was a big hit and, as billed, featured plenty of wild foods plucked from local woods, parks, and seas to keep a trend-spotting foodista happy.

Plus my galpal and I felt vaguely au courant showing up for supper at an unknown Folsom Street location.

We shared a communal table with a gay couple who sung the praises of their forageSF CSA box, Asian-American friends from the outer SF neighborhoods in search of something a little edgier to celebrate Chinese New Year, and canners and jammers from Pacific Heights, of all places. Go figure.

And, as previously noted, the wild mushroom ice cream, rocked. Seriously.

In a relatively short amount of time, Rabins has developed a devoted culinary cult following for his off-the-grid, gourmet venture, which includes a CSA box filled with gleaned goodies such as miner’s lettuce, ramps, and nettles, secret seasonal feasts like the one I attended, and local wild food walks. Rabins says he hopes his foraging forays help city folks get in touch with the wider, wilder world. A worthy goal, for sure.

Rabins is also the driving force behind another clandestine city culinary event, the Underground Farmers Market, a monthly meet held in San Francisco’s Mission District that exudes more of a party vibe than a venue for earnest produce lovers  — with long lines snaking around the block filled with inner-city, health-conscious hipsters in search of pork-belly buns (Rabins specialty), baked goods, homebrews, pickles, and preserves, all for sale by DIY home cooks.

Stephanie Rosenbaum did a nice job conveying the scene in a post for Bay Area Bites. (This writer did swing by a recent farmers’ market but didn’t queue to get in. I gather since the market moved to a bigger space, the crowd control issues are a thing of the past.)

Vendors happily flog their foodstuffs sans city approval or permits — which can prove prohibitive for urban-homesteading types trying their hand selling on a small scale. (Rabins does his own, informal quality control, tasting every item for sale.)

The frequently plaid-clad Iso Rabins is a king of inner-city cool and in high demand in culinary circles. He writes an occasional column for CHOW, speaks at food panels like a recent Kitchen Table Talks, and gathers lots of press for his projects.

His events typically sell out, and when he’s not foraging, cooking, or penning posts for cyberspace, he’s contemplating the contents of a book project about bringing wild food recipes to urban home cooks.

What most impresses me about Rabins is his quiet intention to make a living out of doing what he loves. He’s the sole proprietor of forageSF and while he’s hardly bringing in the big bucks — he tells me he’s now able to pay the rent without stress each month for the first time in a while — he’s doing what all those corporate big shots suggest: Building his brand, diversifying his portfolio, and expanding his franchise (an underground market is set to open in the East Bay in June).

His advice? “Just go for it, the worst that can happen is that you’ll have to move back in with your parents,” says the 28-year-old aspiring chef, who has done time toiling in brick-and-mortar restaurants. “Beyond that, think of something that you wouldn’t mind doing seven days a week for a year, and craft your business around that. If you enjoy doing it, you’ll keep doing it, even if money doesn’t come in immediately. Sooner or later it will support you.”

Hmmm. That’s the kind of advice we writers — the ones caught between the demise of the dead-tree-media and the advent of the don’t-pay-media — may do well to follow.

Rabins is one of the budding new food entrepreneurs buzzing around the Bay Area, reinventing how to build a culinary career in these post-recession, social-media savvy times. I’ve profiled two high-end confectionery makers who found their sweet spot in the marketplace while holding onto demanding day jobs. I’ve also showcased a successful non-profit cooking program for kids run by a recent graduate.

If you’re local, don’t just take my word for it, you can get a taste of Rabins’ foraging finds by attending a Wild Kitchen feast but check out previous underground eats and sign up for email invites for future events.

Or take a wild walk (an amble, really) in San Francisco or the East Bay. I attended a recent such meet-up in a modest park in Oakland led by a gregarious guide who goes by the moniker FeralKevin. The guy knows how to glean goodies like nobody’s business and was full of handy tips about how to incorporate wild weeds into home cooking.

Find out when the next SF underground market is slated by becoming a member. (To date, the city’s health department has given forageSF room to grow by making market goers sign up for his “club,” though Rabins suspects it’s a matter of time before he gets cited.)

What say you, readers? Share your thoughts about taking a walk on the wild side below.

Originally published on Lettuce Eat Kale

To those of us that forage for wild mushrooms, morels easily are the most enigmatic. Far and away, morels (Morchella species) draw more people into the woods than any other mushroom. In fact, a large percentage of morel hunters will retire their mushroom baskets for the year once the last morel has fired its spores and withered.

What is it about the morel that has such allure? Sure, they’re tasty. But, arguably, there are tastier members of the Fifth Kingdom.

To many, morels are the first sign of spring. For those of us east of the Rockies, we cannot be blamed for any excuse to get out of doors after being cooped up inside for month after snowy month (and, no, sitting inside a shanty on a frozen lake doesn’t count).

It’s likely that morels attract more neophyte mushroom hunters because they’re fairly unlikely to be mistaken for an inedible species; the really dangerous species (e.g. Amanita spp., Galerina spp.) mostly occur later in the year. Most people in the Midwest or Northeast know someone that hunts morels and will be willing to show a neophyte the ropes (though, it’s unlikely that they’ll share a favorite “spot”—don’t even ask!).

I get asked all the time: Where do you look for morels? Honestly, morels can be found just about anywhere in a good year. I have found them in gravel parking lots, in standing water on lawns, in wheat and soybean field stubble, and in the cinders along railroads (the latter one is actually fairly well known among morel hunters).

Many situations are exceptional, however. In general, morels will be found more regularly in younger wooded areas and the edges of mature woods on gently sloping land. Morels don’t seem to like having their feet wet, so usually not in bottomlands. Again, everyone has a spot that is the exception to any rules. You can look for trees that flourish in the same habitat as morels; in some cases the morels may even be mycorrhizal symbionts with those trees. The most successful morel hunters can identify tree species in the early spring (when there is little foliage), relying on the appearance of bark and twigs, or last year’s leaf litter. This is tough to do, but in general, to pick mushrooms throughout the year, one needs to be able to ID trees and other plants, in addition to mushrooms.

In the Midwest, look for recently dead American elm trees. The bark should just be pulling away from the tree in large sheets and some bark may even by lying on the ground (be sure to check beneath bark!). Dead elms can be almost automatic for morels. American elm is noted by its beautiful vase or flask shape; the base of mature elms will not be very round nor radially symmetrical. By the way, we have several species of elm in North America and most will not be productive; many occur in swamps. Don’t waste time—know your trees. Other trees throughout North America that share similar habitat with morels and that are most productive include white ash (and sometimes green ash), various wild cherry, white pine, cottonwood, tulip, and I have even had good luck around American sycamore.

The tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) is sometimes called “yellow poplar” (even though true poplar is a completely unrelated genus) and is a favorite morel species in much of the Midwest and East. In fact, many consider the tulip morel to be different from other yellow morels; it is most often much paler in color.

By the way, these rules apply only to those trees listed above when growing wild. Any of those tree species in a planted setting (say, in someone’s backyard) may be productive for morels, but it’s unlikely. There is one planted tree, however, that you should seek out. Across the Midwest and Northeast, well-known hotspots for morels are old apple orchards. I’m talking fallow and no longer being cultivated. No one knows why, exactly; possibly there’s a mycorrhizal association between apple tree roots and yellow morels. Just one more reason why morels are the most enigmatic mushroom. It’s likely you have some sure-fire spots for morels that aren’t included above. Indeed there may be but a single thing that morel mavens can agree on: there’s never enough of them!

Each year, between November and February, slowly and intently, hachiya persimmon altars begin to take root in my North Oakland apartment. They form on my kitchen window sill; on my bedroom dresser; on my dining room table; on my office desk. I fall into the familiar habit of always having one or two persimmons in my bag in case, in the course of the day’s travels, I meet a neighbor to whom I’d like to bestow a persimmon.

The first time I saw a persimmon was in my North Oakland neighborhood in California. The exact moment is now foggy in my memory, but the sensation remains clear, that quickening of the heart, that sudden unbelievable joy at such an unexpected fruit in the dead of winter. Now, four years later, I am on a train that has just departed the station in Bra, Italy, and I am heading towards Carmagnola. On the train ride, I’ve passed the most haphazard (insofar as their use of all possible available space) and well-tended orchards that nearly abut the train. And just a moment ago, the train crept along as Italian trains can, and in plain sight, we passed an orchard of hachiya persimmons. A few of the fruits were ripening, but by and large, the tree bore matte lime green fruit, with a few glossy orange globes towards the top. Each time I unexpectedly find myself in sight of a persimmon tree, the same heart-quickening sensation returns, the feeling as lucid as the first time I saw the fruit in Oakland.

What I remember most about that first time are the contrasts; the tree, heavy with fruit, so weighty, and still so unassuming in the dusk’s haze, glowing sweetly. And by this point, by the time the fruit is ripening, almost all the leaves have fallen, leaving absolutely no shield for the radiant orange fruit. They glow, almost unnaturally. I was riding my bicycle and paused in front of the tree, so struck by it. I think years from now, long after I’ve moved on from the Bay Area, the memory of winter persimmons will remain luminescent and magnificent, probably as clear as the day I first spotted the tree.

Persimmons may also hold a special place in my heart because I associate them with generosity. Inevitably when I meet someone who has a persimmon tree and I ask if I am able to harvest some of the fruit, they show an uncommon generosity with the fruit. This generosity does not stem from the desperate desire to rid themselves of the fruit, but I believe that it comes from a shared passion that cannot help but spawn the urgent desire to share.

Here is a case in point. Once, last November, just days before I was leaving for Rome, I was walking in South Berkeley with two friends. We parted ways, I was a bit dismayed from not having found a single viable fruit tree to harvest in our walk around the neighborhood. Just as I turned the corner from King to Woolsey Street, I spotted a middle age man, tenderly pruning his fuyu persimmon tree. Overjoyed, I collected myself and we chatted for a bit. He told me that he had more persimmons than he and his wife could eat this season. He sent me home with two brown lunch bags full of beautiful, ripening orange fuyus.

The morning I left for Rome, I cycled around Temescal and Lower Rockridge, running last minute neighborhood errands. I left my fruit picker with Jenn; a bag of apples for the next door neighbors; a thank you note to Linda for the figs. The fuyus I’d been gifted the previous week by the kind man on Woolsey Street were left on the doorstep of another neighbor. In what I thought was this woman’s front yard, there was a handsome hachiya persimmon tree, laden with fruit. Several years prior, I had left the woman a note requesting permission to harvest from her tree. Several days later, she delivered a bag of hachiyas to my front door step along with a note. For some reason, maybe because I was so taken with this tree and thus even more terrified of rejection, I had not approached the woman for two years, but instead, I watched the fruit ripen from a distance, and cycled past in the evening as the fruit shone in the dim light. I re-introduced myself and asked if it might be okay, once again, to harvest several fruit. She told me that she was not particularly fond of hachiya persimmons, but she adored fuyus. As a thank you for her kindness, I cycled over to her house, and I left the bag of fuyus on the porch bench.

Last year, I had the pleasure to create a hanging persimmon installation at August, a boutique clothing shop on College Avenue in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. I cycled around the neighborhood, tapping all my persimmon leads, asking each household if I might harvest several fruits for the show. One house, which has two full hachiya trees on the terraced front garden, allowed me to harvest ten persimmons — such generosity in the wake of such a demand! Every year, this woman is inundated with requests from passers by to harvest from her stately persimmon trees, and she still managed to display such warmth and openness in honoring my request. I harvested the ten fruits well after nightfall, replete with head lamp, and a bicycle basket already full of persimmons gathered from other neighborhood trees. Each time I cycle past this house, I am reminded of the relationship that I have with the woman who lives there. She requested grapefruit in exchange, and once the fruits were ripe, I left a bag on the doorstep with a note explaining the location of the grapefruit tree. There is little like an un-seasonally warm April day, clear skies and the acrid smell of heaps of grapefruit, which have been warming and rotting in the April sun. As soon as you reach the top of a certain hill in Upper Rockridge, you won’t help but be able to notice the smell of the grapefruit, and at least for me, even as I bike past this intersection when grapefruits are not falling and rotting, and smell still hangs heavy in the air.

Lastly, here is a fond memory of a persimmon harvest with my friend Megan during the autumn of 2005. Megan and I cycled towards downtown Berkeley one October afternoon in search of two persimmon trees which Megan had spotted earlier in the season when the fruit was not yet ripe. We had a general idea of the location of the tree, we wove our way around the streets west of the Berkeley farmer’s market until we gleefully happened upon the hachiya trees, which were so heavy with ripe fruit — and also completely out of reach. The tree was glimmering with orange spheres, but it would take either a very confident tree climber or a ladder if we really were to do a serious job on the tree. So, we paused and considered the options, after unsuccessfully trying to scale the lower branches of the tree in order to gain footing to reach the higher limbs. Just at this moment appeared a man who looked like he’d definitely have a ladder in his shed. He did, and he kindly lent it to Megan and me for the afternoon, as we precariously repositioned the ladder, trying our best to harvest the fruit on the outlying limbs of the trees. Somehow, it becomes so tempting to reach for the fruit that is just out of reach. Megan and I were a veritable two person assembly line, alternating between me being in the tree and passing fruit to Megan below, and Megan scaling the ladder and passing down fruit to me.

Eventually, a small but enthusiastic crowd gathered at the trunk, mostly inquiring after the fruit that was being harvested, and there were a few sheepish requests for persimmons as well. Amongst the requests was also a rather forthright demand for ‘more fruit!’ by an older woman who spoke very limited English. Although the language barrier prevented us from exchanging love stories of the persimmon tree, what I did gather was that she had harvested fruit from the trees in prior season, and she arrived with three empty plastic bags, and she requested particular fruits to harvest.

Now, I am in Biella, Italy, a small town in the northern Piedmont region. One Saturday afternoon, at the height of the July heat, Bona and I wondered around a neighborhood southeast of the city center, hoping to eventually find the open market. Before we found the market, we happened upon a beautifully imposing hachiya persimmon tree on Via Addis Abeba. The tree sits on the edge of a lot which is also home to a black walnut tree, a plum tree, and a swath of blackberries. The house that sits in the middle of the lot appears abandoned, and I wonder what will come of the persimmons once they begin to ripen this late autumn, after I’ve moved on from Biella. I have a feeling that the fruit, will, as is so common with persimmons, have countless takers, and there will not be the sad sight of heaps of rotting persimmons at the base of the trunk. While it would be a perfect end to my four month stay in this sleepy town, I doubt I’ll be able to end my stay with a persimmon harvest. But, it’s my hope that all those who are lucky enough to enjoy the fruit enjoy the process thoroughly- from spotting the tree to gathering friends to harvest to patiently waiting for the fruit to ripen and finally, to breaking the little hachiya peak with a grapefruit spoon and savoring the season’s first spoonful of unadulterated neighborhood persimmon.

Imagine gathering several friends for morning, midday, evening or weekend foraged city bicycle rides through your neighborhood. Rough maps are drawn, noting the forage-ables that can be found at each location and ‘cold calls’ are made to your neighbors asking if you can sample a fruit from their backyard tree. You have the courage to introduce yourself (despite the pervasiveness and acceptance of urban anomie) and they reward your neighborliness with a sample of Santa Rosa plums, for example. Later, when you find yourself with a surplus of Persian mulberries, you, in turn, deliver a small basket to said neighbor. With time and in this fashion, a community of people who care for and know one another is built, and rather than being the exception, this could be the norm.

This is not idealistic, rather it is necessary, pragmatic, and creative — especially in times when much of the world is suffering from lack of access to healthful and satisfying fresh food. Forage Oakland is a project that works to construct a new model, and is one of many neighborhood projects that will eventually create a network of local resources that address the need and desire for neighborhoods to be more self-sustaining in meeting their food needs. At its core, it works to address how we eat everyday, and how everyone can benefit from viewing their neighborhood as a veritable edible map, considering what is cultivated in any given neighborhood and why, and what histories influence those choices. The gleaning of unharvested fruits; the meeting of new neighbors; the joy of the season’s first hachiya persimmon (straight from your neighbor’s backyard, no less); the gathering and redistribution of fruits that would otherwise be wasted — can be powerful and can work to create a new paradigm around how we presently think about food in our collective consciousness.

I moved to the Bay Area in late August 2004, just after finishing college. What I remember about that first taxi ride from the Oakland airport to my new house at Oregon and Martin Luther King Jr. Way in South Berkeley are the pastel colored squat houses graced with citrus trees in the front yard. Some of the houses along Ashby between San Pablo and Sacramento Streets looked a bit derelict to my eyes, and I found it curious that they would have fruit trees in the front yard. I considered fruit trees to be a display of abundance, wealth, or stability, somehow seeming out of kilter with a house that might house transient residents.

But I soon learned that many of the houses in South Berkeley and North Oakland, regardless of the socio-economic status of the residents, are graced with fruit trees. I found this fascinating. I spent a year living in this house on Oregon Street, more or less oblivious to the bounty around me. While I passed the citrus trees every day, along with other fruits which were, at that point, less recognizable to me, I hadn’t begun to think about the politics of the harvesting, sharing, and possible redistribution of the neighborhood fruit. So, for some time, I happily noted the fruit trees in my neighborhood, and surely appreciated their aesthetic appeal, but the interaction was more or less passive.

The following school term, I began a one year position working at the Edible Schoolyard, which is a school garden based at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. There, I worked in the ¾ acre garden along side the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, guiding them in exercises of cultivating, composting building, harvesting and propagating seeds. This was the first time I’d spent such an extended amount of time in a garden and this experience was an awakening, as it suddenly brought to life the countless fruit trees that I passed in my daily travels through Berkeley and Oakland. In due time, I could identify the various fruit trees in my neighborhood, from the passion fruit vines to the loquats to the kaffir limes. A new enthusiasm was borne as I became aware of the countless possibilities of exploring my neighborhood anew.

I began to redefine my neighborhood has an abundant place filled with an ever-changing variety of edibles. I mapped new geographies of the streets I crossed, and with time I became increasingly aware of the nuanced changes in the season that would produce green walnuts perfect for nocino or passion fruit at their prime. Fruits’ coming into season became a secondary calendar with which I gauged the passing of time. I marked the beginning of the spring with the first loquat harvest. Nowadays, five years later, this is all second nature. But, it was only in moving to Northern California that I became more keenly aware of how the seasons change a bit each day, as I could actually see (and taste) these changes for myself. I could know exactly when pears were at their peak by cycling over to 45th Street and harvesting a pear for myself. During plum season, my neighbor on Lawton Avenue would leave a basket of ripe plums for passers by; there was no questioning whether plums were in season.

Coming to these conclusions regarding my food choices as a young adult has been richly empowering and not as linear or obvious as one might think. There has never been a clearer moment for me to understand that what I decide to eat has a direct and immediate impact on others than during the five years I’ve spent in the Bay Area. There is a dedicated community of activists, farmers, eaters, and cooks who are all deeply committed to educating themselves about their food choices with the hope that they will be able to make a well informed decision regarding the producers they support. When presented with the choice, what could be more powerful than taking such a precious matter into one’s own hands?

Forage Oakland is about viewing food as a shared pleasure and a shared resource, and redistributing it to those who will enjoy it. Invite your neighbors to exchange their surplus peaches for their neighbor’s surplus blackberries. Leave a fruit basket on your neighbor’s doorsteps: apples by the pound, Santa Rosa plums, sour cherries, persimmons, pineapple, guava, and apricots. New associations will form, and new geographies will be created. The street corner where Ashby Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way meet will no longer be marked by its corner store, rather it’ll defined by the prolific fig tree on the northeast corner. Encourage your neighbors to share their backyard bounty and barter what they don’t intend to use. Hop on your bicycle and redistribute the surplus to another neighbor, making a note of the location of the harvested bounty. An edible landscape can be formed that is interactive, a bit different every day as fruit ripens and falls and as the seasons change. The barter can translate to other areas of urban living, and can create a community of people who’d rather do it for themselves and play an active role in their consumerism. When there are plums in your neighbor’s backyard, enjoy them with your neighbor!

The underground restaurant scene has been gaining ground, so to speak, and while I’ve been hearing about many iterations of secret eateries all over the country (and the world), I had yet to check one out for myself until last week, when I bought two tickets to attend Wild Kitchen—an underground supper put on by San Francisco upstart ForageSF.

ForageSF is the brainchild of Iso Rabins, a committed young scavenger who has made a business of the bounty of the Bay Area by creating a “community-supported forage” subscription service, much like a CSA. Members of Rabins’ CSF get a box full of whatever he’s pulled from land and sea, all subject to the seasons (some of which are even more fleeting then farm crop seasons, such as a quick blink of wild mushrooms and miner’s lettuce). Rabins began doing occasional secret suppers as a way to assemble community around the delights of cooking and eating foraged food.

I bought my tickets online based upon a menu sent by email that promised fried cattail hearts, wild vegetarian sushi, foraged nori, local spring vegetables, and acorn ice cream. On the day of the dinner, I received another email revealing the address of the temporary establishment—fortunately just a few blocks from my house in the Mission.

About twenty people showed up, some whom were already CSF subscribers and friends of Rabins, and others who were just passing through town from the east coast on their way to the weekend’s Maker Faire festivities. As Rabins said after the meal was complete, the crowd defines the evening, and this was a lively group. Conversation never ceased at the two long tables as we sampled radish greens from nearby McLaren Park, sipped 5-year miso soup, and drank a wide array of wine that arrived on the table via the BYOB policy.

Overall, the Wild Kitchen excelled as the sum of its parts. The food was very good, but the experience revolved as much on the novelty of eating unusual ingredients with a tangible backstory (I’d never tried cattails and certainly wouldn’t have thought to munch on the greens that grow in the shadows of McLaren park) and on the group of people that showed up to share it. I left thinking that the primary difference between making a great, interesting meal for friends and hosting a secret supper is that you recoup your costs and you get to be surprised by your own guest list. Certainly neither of these factors is to be underestimated—it was great fun to meet other local food enthusiasts and if felt good to support a venture founded on the principles of fair food and fulfilling work. As Iso Rabins builds a community around the fun of foraging, he’s also building himself a satisfying, independent career.

Photos: Monica Jensen

It is with much anticipation that wild morel season is approaching for much of North America. The Upper Midwest and Northeast boast some of the largest yields of these highly prized wild mushrooms. Even larger numbers are collected from the mountainous areas of the West. In fact, in the western mountains, you will find the commercial collectors out in force this spring, following the paths of last season’s fires which will spawn a huge crop of a particular type of morel that fruits after burns.

The public’s interest in foraging for wild edibles in general, and wild mushrooms in particular, is on the rapid increase in North America. (Whether it has anything to do with the fact that none of us can afford to buy groceries anymore, is left to the reader to ponder!) Morel season is a great time for novices to get started as the risks are relatively low; morels are a pretty safe bet with a brief familiarization.

Each year I take part in, as well as lead, many organized mushroom forays around the country and sometimes abroad. In addition, my entire family goes out collecting wild mushrooms throughout the year; the first wild mushroom picked by all three of my kids was a morel. And I guess that’s pretty much how I got started as well. Some of my earliest memories are of being in the woods with my family, hunting morels in the springtime in southern Ohio.

So this spring, maybe you too will give mushroom foraging a try! To get you started, I would strongly urge finding someone with experience. This shouldn’t be hard to do—as far as wild mushrooms go, morel season draws more folks into the woods than any other kind of mushroom. In fact, there are many organized morel forays all across North America and it’s very likely you can find one in your area. In his book Morels, Michael Kuo describes some of the most popular morel events (yep, there are even morel festivals!) across the Midwest. Tom Naumann of Magnolia, Illinois, is a well-known morel guide and, along with several other experts, operates “Morel University” which aims to make expert hunters out of all who take their short (but oh so tasty) course in the spring.

So, where to look? (Again, I cannot overemphasize the benefits of going with a veteran—both to your success and to your health. While small, there is a real chance of finding and consuming poisonous mushrooms. Never take a chance on eating a mushroom that you’re not absolutely certain of: when in doubt, throw it out!) Throughout much of the range east of the Rockies, you’ll have your best luck checking beneath American elm trees (especially recently dead ones), white ash trees, tulip trees, and in very old apple orchards. This last one has been known to morellers for generations. But recently some mushroom hunters have claimed that long term spraying of the apple trees with heavy metal-based fungicides in the last century may cause ill effects in those consuming apple orchard morels. A report in the winter issue of the journal Fungi goes a long way to dispel this myth. Turns out that the heavy metals used to prevent fungal disease in the apple orchards (primarily lead arsenate), while no doubt bad for the environment (and no longer used), is in a chemical form that’s not likely taken up into the mushroom’s tissues. Of course, more research needs to be done but for the time being there is no reason to suspect apple orchard morels are any less safe than those found growing anywhere else. And if you are wary, simply stick to the woods; there are usually plenty of morels to go around!

Right about now, the forests of North America are starting to come alive. Two-legged creatures, not sighted in the woods since around this time last year, can be spotted moving about in a stealthy fashion or crouching…on the lookout…for quarry of a fungal sort. And with good reason! Many folks who are too busy to set foot in a woodland at any other time of the year are right now heading out into the wilds of North America to pursue the prized morel mushrooms.

Although tricky to find (their drab coloration blends in very well with the shades of brown on the early spring forest floor), morels are probably voted #1 on the tastiness scale by mushroom hunters and gastronomes, alike. Plus, along with their springtime brethren (wild ramps and wild asparagus), they form a “holy trinity” that is the basis for some of the most amazingly tasty food that can be foraged at any time during the year. But how does one know where to look…and what to look for? And how can you be sure you’re about to pick an edible mushroom and not merely a poisonous lookalike?

We mycologists are glad to see an increase in curiosity about wild mushrooms; nevertheless, mushroom poisonings continue to occur as many amateurs are unable to properly identify safe edible types. A beginner should try to find a veteran mushroomer to accompany during your first morel forays. An experienced morel hunter will take you into the woods at the right time, which varies depending on where you live but usually occurs from early April to the first of June for much of the upper range of North America. Also, a seasoned morel hunter will know where to look. In a good year, it’s true that morels can occur just about anywhere. But you will always have much better luck searching the most favorable habitats: around old, dying, or recently dead American elm and white ash trees, in the Midwest; very old apple orchards are good bet anywhere east of the Rockies; and burned forests in the western mountainous zones.

Morels occur very early in spring when few other types of mushrooms are up, lessening your chances to pick something dangerous. However, the false morels are also fruiting at this time, and as their name implies, they (arguably) look similar to true morels. And they are poisonous. Foray sensibly! While small, there is a real chance of finding and consuming poisonous mushrooms. Never take a chance on eating a mushroom that you’re not absolutely certain of: when in doubt, throw it out!

And what of those poisonous false morels? Well, I do want to emphasize that they are poisonous. That being said, the false morels have long been collected and consumed by mushroom foragers. (In fact, I’ve eaten them. In the past. I have not done so for a long time and don’t plan to consume them anymore, now that I know a lot more about the hazards.) False morels go by other, less sinister names like beefsteak morels. It seems that with lots of cooking, the toxic compounds (called “gyromitrins”) may be volatilized and driven from the mushroom, rendering them safe-ish for consumption. In his book Morels, Michael Kuo points out that people are poisoned every year by consuming false morels and that deaths have occurred. Again, I strongly recommend avoiding them.

How can you tell a false morel from a true morel? It’s actually pretty easy, as they don’t look that similar (see photo). True morels range in color from various shades of light brown to tan to almost white, and are gray when they first emerge; there are very dark brown to black species as well. False morels are typically reddish. And morels are very characteristically deeply pitted in appearance, reminiscent of a natural bath sponge; false morels have no pits but are more wavy or brain-like in appearance. And the final way to tell the difference is by slicing in half (which you will want to do in the kitchen prior to cooking, as bugs and millipedes like to hang out inside morels on occasion). Morels are always completely hollow from bottom to top. False morels never are; they may have hollow parts but not entirely.

In this time of watching our wallets, our good intentions about eating sustainable food could easily descend into bad habits, cutting corners and disenchantment about the food system.  Instead, I’d like to offer a few ways I’ve been eating good, clean and fair on a reasonable budget:

1. Cut Out the Middle Man – Whether you sign up for a winter share of vegetables (look for one at Local Harvest), so that your money goes directly to the farmer in exchange for a weekly share of local, fresh food, or you shop at farmer’s markets (a tip is to go at the end of the day, when vendors are willing to bargain a bit more for the food they don’t want to bring home) cutting out the distributor or grocery chain will lower the price of your food, and still allow you to get the best produce.  As an example, my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share costs around $25 per week, and in the summer I’ve been receiving between 12-20 lbs of vegetables.  Also, buy less pre-packaged food (wine, olive oil and chocolate are my favorite exceptions) as it costs much more than unprocessed food.

2. Perfect your Kitchen Skills – Invest in one solid cookbook, like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, or How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (you might even be able to get a used copy), and work on your home cooking.  On average, meals cooked at home cost less than half that of meals eaten in a middle-of-the-road restaurant.  Don’t have time?  A trick I like to use is to cook extra grains to add to future meals, and I always make lots of leftovers for lunch and dinner the next day.  Bringing lunch to work is always a good idea.  Home cooking is healthier, and you can be sure to know where you food is coming from.

3. Eat-In! – Have a regular Eat-in, or potluck, where attendees can bring their favorite dishes and everyone can eat well.  Eat-ins are a great opportunity to share ideas, whether about the change we need to see in our food system, or any good cause.  Empower your friends by helping them source the best priced good, clean and fair food and share the stories behind your dish.  (Yesterday I made pancakes, and my husband said they were the best he’d ever eaten.  Local eggs and butter, stone ground wheat from upstate New York, and Vermont maple syrup made it possible.)

4. Go for a Forage – This time last year, I spent a day foraging with the Wild Man Steve Brill in Central Park and came home with a booty of apples, spices, burdock root and edible greens.  Guide books are great, but don’t go nibbling on any mushrooms before you figure out which ones might kill you!  Having gone with a guide, I now feel confident that I could return to the park and locate and recognize a few edible species.  In places like Los Angeles fruit hanging over the fence is fair game for picking.  There is so much around us that is edible, we’ve just forgotten about it.

5. Plan Your Spring Garden – Collect the seeds from this year’s garden, or request seed catalogs and save money on seedlings by starting them yourself.  If you are like me and both suffer from a lack of a green thumb and live in an apartment in the city and lack soil, try this: What is the status of your roof?  Can you place planters up their without anyone noticing or with the permission of the building?  Get a book, like The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla. Also, in my kitchen window I’m growing basil and occasionally sprouts, which are great in winter when there aren’t as many fresh local lettuces. Allotments are also a popular way to grow food in urban areas.

6. Eat Less – ‘Tis the season for loosening your belt, but is ritual overeating necessary?  Making a Thanksgiving feast to welcome friends and family to the table can be a celebratory moment, but savor it, and eat slowly.  The more you pace yourself the less you will ingest, as there is a twenty minute lag between when you are full and when your brain knows you are full.  And best of all, this leaves more leftovers for lunch!

7. Volunteer in a Kitchen or on a Farm – This is a great way to get some freebies, especially on the farm where you might get a meal and some of what you pick.  It’s the harvest season, and you’d be pretty hard pressed not to find a farm that could use a helping hand.  (Check out World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)

8. Save Money Elsewhere Before Scrimping on Food – Okay, okay, so this is not so much of a tip about food savings.  But more of a plug for what good, clean and fair food can do to change our lives.  We don’t put enough value in food, and in turn our bodies and the Earth are in peril.  Supporting bad stewardship practices and corporate crops means there will only be more unhealthy food to go around. Americans now spend 11% of their income on food, the lowest percentage ever.  Yet if, instead of that 5th or 6th magazine subscription, or the television-phone, or extra pair of jeans, we could eat delicious, earth-conscious food and spend around 15 – 20% of our income instead, we should be willing to change our mindset.  This is switching from the “me” to the “we” mentality is unavoidable if we are to stay inhabitants of this planet into the future.

Finally, enjoy eating.  Taking pleasure in food is not a crime, even in dark times.  Reflect on the work that went into your dinner and you will appreciate every penny spent.  Now hop on your bike and head to the farmer’s market before it closes!

Photo: *patrick