To The Bone

I wrote generically about making herb oils (among other things) earlier this week, so I thought I’d give paid subscribers the details on exactly how I do it. I’ll give you the generic recipe, then places where you’ll need to switch things up depending on the ingredient. You’ll mostly start with fresh herbs, although there are occasions where the dried herb is superior. Use a neutral oil, too. I use grapeseed oil because it’s cheap, flavorless, and has a high smoke point.

The inside of my fridge. Judge me if you want… It has been said that my kitchen is full of ingredients, not food. There is some truth to that. While yes, I usually have Kind bars and crackers around for quick calories, mostly what I do is make good things to eat, using fun, quirky, and intensely flavored ingredients — almost always of my own creation.

It rained yesterday. The kind of rain that foreshadows a new season. A cool rain, steady, with winds from the north that blow leaves from the trees. Make no mistake: Summer still rules here, but autumn is coming. Thank god. A northern life is like this: As the light lengthens, so do our days. For most of us, it means road trips and time with family. Non-stop social gatherings. Barbecues. Trips to a cabin or the woods or the lake. Kids are home. Camps, playdates, pools.

I watched the movie Spiderman: No Way Home for the first time last night and immediately thought about the previous week’s adventure with two of my friends, Alan Bergo and Sam Thayer. There are some weird but fun parallels. At the risk of spoilers, the movie explores the multiverse, where the same person can exist in different universes. At one point in the film, all three actors who have played Spiderman appear together in a fun — and very meta — action finale. It’s a really great movie.

I’d wanted to see my ancestral home in Scotland for decades. Turns out that was a taller order than I had imagined, and it says as much about family histories writ large as it does about my direct line, down to the life I have lived over five decades. It’s eerie. A place called Tordarroch was what I had in mind when I rode the train from Edinburgh to Inverness.

Yep, that’s the fermented shark… “I’m not eating puffin, I’m not eating whale, and I’m not eating that shark.” My brother Fred was adamant about this. So was I. I’m with ya, bro. I’m with ya. Fred’s reasoning was sensibly rooted in the fact that the flavors of these three Icelandic foods range from oddly beefy-briny, to fishy and greasy, to downright horrific. My reasoning was a bit more complex. I am certainly not the guy to tell you to not eat odd foods. Far from it.

Yep, the new cover! Who knew Polish stuffed cabbage could look so good? This one’s for you. Before I announce this anywhere else — before Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, before Wild Bites, before social media, before Amazon gets involved — I wanted you, the paid subscribers here at To the Bone, to see it first. The new 10th Anniversary upgrade edition of Buck, Buck, Moose is now available for preorder.

This Icelandic seafood soup was one of the best dishes of my journey. I knew that I wanted a hot dog right out of the gate. I’d heard so much about Icelandic hot dogs, I had to see if the hype was real. So my brother Fred and I hunted down some nearby pylsur stands in search of a great weiner. When we walked into the first shop, it was empty. Maybe not a great sign, but it was after normal lunch hours.

I knew we needed that chokecherry cake. A couple months ago, I asked my friend Alan Bergo if he’d help me with a major catering gig I was doing for the Minnesota Land Trust. Eighteen people, tasting menu, and they wanted it to be very Minnesota. I could think of no one better to be my right hand for this than Alan. I was stoked when he said yes.

Were I a plant, I may well be lovage. Not because it’s beautiful, although I think it is rather handsome. Or because it’s fashionable. It isn’t. Or universally beloved. Definitely not. Lovage is useful. It is versatile. It has been around a very long time. It occasionally overwhelms people. It tends to take up more space than expected. Eh, maybe this isn’t helping my case… To The Bone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.