For my birthday last week,my daughter got me the most amazing book.  It is a coffee table size book, hardcover and a work of art. The book is called Kinfolk.  I found the title as I was perusing Pinterest one day.  As I clicked through, I kept finding the most beautiful photographs of people eating together in the simplest and yet beautiful settings.  The photos embodied everything I am about; sharing food and nature and conversation with my kinfolk, in unpretentious settings. Further investigation led me to the Kinfolk quarterly publications and the recent cookbook.  Just weeks before my birthday, I knew that this book was something I needed to add to my wish list.

Hanna, my youngest daughter came through with the prize and presented me with the book on my birthday. She is studying art and physical education at university and she has always been the one of my three children with an aesthetic sensibility similar to mine.  We have spent many an hour scouring thrift shops hoping to find that one special item that causes us to gasp with delight while imagining the story attached to it or strolling through neighbourhoods admiring the architecture, gardens and creating stories about who we think dwells in each of the places we see. It is fitting that she would be the one of my three children to give me this gift. I can’t wait to share it with her.  I can actually imagine Hanna creating a book such as this. She is getting to be quite the little photographer and artist.  Who knows, maybe we could embark on our own  venture together; she creates the art, photos and settings and I create the food and do the writing. Anything is possible.

So, this leads me to how I found my little Saturday project that I am going to experiment with today.  I think you know I like to forage, re: chanterelles, herring roe, hazelnuts blog posts.  Well, I have decided because of something I read in Kinfolk that I do not want to be know as a forager but rather a Wildcrafter.  According to Kinfolk, the entomology of the term ‘forager’ has negative connotations which refer to pillaging or ravaging nature. Since I do not want to do that or be referred to by a name that infers such meaning, I am now officially a ‘wildcrafter,’ and that is what my little experiment is going to be about today.

My intention is to head out to the forest, aka my backyard and carefully clip some new spring growth off the fir, pine and possibly spruce trees if I can find one.  After that I am going to attempt to make conifer infused vinegar and and Belgian chocolate truffles infused with spruce or pine.  Cool hey?  I’ll post photos and continue the story after the experiment.

Chat soon, I’m off to wildcraft.