Foraging

FORAGING
I am adjusting to all the “nature” here. I romanticize the country life, but it’s hard for a (sub)urban girl to adjust. I would like to be more proficient in my skills in this department, so this is a nice opportunity. It’s been rainy and cold, more than usual for June, and I did not bring appropriate clothes, so it’s been a bit uncomfortable. There is no central heating, but we have lots of fireplaces to light. Matt and I have to do nightly tick checks because the ticks here carry crazy diseases, and we’ve been walking around exploring a lot – giving the ticks ample opportunity to find us. One of the main reasons to walk around is to forage for greens. There is peculiarly almost no produce in the village stores (more on that soon!), so we are feeling nutrient deprived. Sadly the rain has made the growing season late to begin, most gardens are just beginning to bud, and it is neither mushroom nor berry season here yet. The country is still, however, full of nettles, and just like the bumblebee, Estonians find the nectar in the little white nettle flowers delicious - nettle candy. On Evelyn’s birthday we made nettle risotto, and I also repeated the rhubarb cake from the Estonian dinner at Navarre. There are snails everywhere that I would have liked to collect and sweat out, but alas they are not the edible kind. As Matt mentioned, we all went fishing during Kliima, and we also wanted to go hunting – the men were working on bows and arrows – but we never did. The plan was to catch rabbits – which we really just needed traps for I think… I wanted to kill them MFK Fisher style, with brandy, a sweet and sleepy death. But needless to say, it didn’t happen. The woods in Mooste are full of elk, moose, deer, wild boar, which all sound delicious, but they are also full of bears – in fact the barn next to our house was apparently the “bear barn” during the old estate days. Bears are a big turn-off for me, so I have been loathe to explore the woods. Yesterday, Matt and I were exploring in a beautiful apple orchard, and I began meandering though a meadow full of Queen Anne’s lace and dandelion puffs to pick dandelion greens to eat, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer bucked out of the flowers! Amazingly the Queen Anne’s Lace were deep enough to hide a deer! Unfortunately I had not brought my gun, or a sound recorder to capture the bizarre barking the deer began to emit – running around in a craze. Apparently male deer here bark – and in June they are looking for mates.


SHOCKED DANDELION GREENS
Gather dandelion greens as far away from any building or road as possible. Wash them and boil in salted water until tender. Saute with minced garlic, chopped onion and olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and red chile pepper flakes if you have them. Top with grated parmesan.