Brooklyn Feed

Check out this great article in the Daily News by writer Amy Sacks. There are wonderful suggestions for nature walks, ranger tours, etc. all available in New York City.

On Saturday my friend Alison and I went on a wild edibles foraging tour of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Wildman Steve Brill was our very funny and knowledgeable guide. We had a big group of about 25-30 people and we raised eyebrows as we all bend down, picked some weedy looking plant and then put it in our mouths. I highly recommend any of Steve’s tours. I learned a lot about plants I’d never really taken notice of before. He shared tips for what part of the plant is edible, how to cook them, what time of the year you are most likely to find them, and their medicinal properties.

Here’s a list of what we found on Saturday. Alison took the notes while I took the photos. There was so much information, it would have been hard to do both!

1. Hedge Mustard
2. Poor Man’s Pepper
     a. good in stews and salads. Prevents cancer cells from developing.
3. Garlic Mustard
     a. very invasive! Eat a lot of it.
     b. Use it in pesto
     c. Root is also edible and tastes like horseradish
     d. Is in season well into May
     e. Flower bud looks like broccoli and the best flavor is when the plant is blossoming.
4. Lesser Celandine
     a. in the buttercup family
     b. eat it before it flowers. It’s toxic after it flowers.
     c. Best cooked w/ rice
5. Gout Weed
     a. Parsley and celery flavor
     b. Use it like parsley.
6. Kentucky Coffee Tree Seeds
     a. Seeds and green pulp are poisonous raw. Roast them about 1.5 hours at 300º. Grind them to       make decaf coffee.
     b. Can be added to hot chocolate and chocolate cake.
7. Star of Bethlehem
     a. Poisonous to eat
     b. Can be confused with field garlic. It has a distinguishing white stripe that field garlic doesn’t.
8. Japanese Knot Weed
     a. Related to rhubarb
     b. Peel the stem and eat it. Don’t eat the leaves.
     c. Makes a nice fruit compote. 1 part knot weed to 10 parts fruit.
     d. Short fat stems are optimal
     e. Has pretty, lacy flowers in the fall
9. Hercules Club (aka Angelica Tree or Devil’s Walking Stick)
     a. Shave the thorns off with a knife and steam the developing shoots like asparagus.
10. Red Bud Blossoms
     a. put them in salad or toss in batter and make fritters
11. Chickweed
     a. Eat leaves, stems and flowers raw or cooked
     b. Tastes like corn
     c. Loads of vitamins
     d. To cook: wash and chop into bite-sized pieces. Cook (steam the wet leaves) in a pot on low          heat until wilted. In a separate pot cook garlic in oil and toss together.
12. Mugwort
     a. It’s in the wormwood family
     b. You can make a tea to help with PMS
13. Field Garlic
14. Daylily
     a. Has tubers that look like potatoes.
     b. The leaves taste like green beans.
     c. You can eat the leaves, stems, tubers or flowers
     d. 1 in 50 people have digestive problems w/ daylilies. Gradually build up to eating them.
15. Sassafras
     a. Branches grow out at 45º angles from trunk
     b. Smells like root beer
     c. Wash the root, simmer for 20 minutes and chill the tea
     d. Can also use the cambium of the root as cinnamon
16. May Apple
     a. Poisonous except for the ripe fruit
17. Violet
     a. Use the leaves in salad
18. Burdock
     a. Delicious root. Cut the root razor thin on the diagonal, simmer it and put it in rice or a stew.
     b. Leaf has silver, hairy underside.

It’s so wonderful that falcons and hawks have made a come back in big cities. We’ve had red tailed hawks in our yard drooling over our chickens. I know they are in the area to munch on the rodents that live near all our restaurants, and I say “welcome hawks! Munch away!”

Well Atlanta has set up a webcam to spy on a pair of nesting falcons. Read the press release below to learn more about this pair.

Atlanta’s most prominent falcons couple is back in the public eye.

A Web camera at www.georgiawildlife.com is again providing frequent updates on two adult peregrine falcons and their nest outside the 51st-floor offices of the McKenna, Long & Aldridge law firm in downtown Atlanta.

The protected raptors, which typically mate for life, began laying eggs February 27. They have four now. The nestlings are expected in early April. The young will leave the nest at about 5 weeks old.

Clay C. Long, founding partner and a former chairman of the law firm, said the peregrines offer an annual treat, watching the young “from birth through the transition from down to feathers, then learning to fly and to hunt, and finally ending with our couple sending their young off in the world to find their own cliffs on which to dwell.”

Peregrines were removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species because of a successful population recovery effort, but Georgia still lists the birds as rare. There are only two known peregrine pairs nesting in Georgia, both in Atlanta, said Jim Ozier, a Nongame Conservation Section program manager with the state Wildlife Resources Division.

Peregrines are possibly the fastest animal in the world. Their dives, used to catch birds in flight, have been clocked at more than 200 mph.

The Wildlife Resources Division and the world have watched falcons nest at McKenna, Long & Aldridge for five years, thanks to the law firm and a grant from The Garden Club of Georgia. One of the first peregrines nesting there was released in Atlanta by the state, in a partnership with Georgia Power and Zoo Atlanta, Ozier said.

The new falcons will face an urban environment plump with pigeons and other prey on the wing but also packed with potential hazards such as windows and traffic. Two of the three peregrines that hatched on the high-rise balcony last year were later treated for injuries.

“The young have to learn how to survive in the city,” Ozier said.

To see this year’s nest, go to www.georgiawildlife.com and click “Conservation,” then “Species of Concern” and the peregrine falcon Web cam link under “Bird Conservation” label. The view shows the planter in which the birds nest. Frequently hit your computer’s refresh, or reload page, button: The images are updated every 30 seconds.

So I mentioned that while I was on a birdwatching tour of Prospect Park I ran into a friend taking a foraging for wild edibles tour. I keep thinking about it and figured out who was running the tour. The man’s name, appropriately enough, is “Wildman” Steve Brill.

On her tour, my friend found wild parsnips, sassafras and other edible plants. It was pretty amazing because almost nothing is green or blooming yet.

Here’s a schedule of his classes. I think I’m going to the one on April 18th in Prospect Park.

This Sunday, friends of ours from Lindsay’s school took Lindsay for the day. We had 4 hours to ourselves and decided to walk around Prospect Park. We went to the Audubon Center, which somehow I had never visited. The 1905 Beaux Arts building was nearly torn down in the 1960s, but NYC granted it landmark status. The Prospect Park Alliance teamed up with Audubon New York to restore the boathouse and in 2002 it was completed. It’s a really lovely building that houses the nation’s first urban Audubon Center.

They have lots of events, including free birdwatching and nature walks every saturday and sunday. We took a nature walk and saw many of the birds we saw the day before at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Our guide was funny and nice and really knew his stuff. While we were out on the tour, we ran into a friend on a different tour. Her tour was a 4-hour guide to wild edibles. She’s planning an article on Depression eating. I really want to take the next tour, which will be in Central Park and will be at a time when more plants are out.

On Saturday we went to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, which is a part of Gateway National Recreation Area to get a nature fix. This national park is lovely and in most areas you have no visual clues you are in or near a huge city. I kind of like the area where city meets nature, so my photos show more of that than the quiet nature. We saw lots of birds that were too far away to take decent photos. Some of what we saw was: downy woodpecker, northern shoveler, american coots, canada geese, snow geese (by the hundreds) great egret, eastern phoebe. There were many other birds that were hiding in the bushes, including many sparrows, which I don’t know how anyone can identify.

I’m not very good at identifying water birds, so we kind of looked over the shoulders of other birders and asked for help. Some were dressed as though they were going on a safari, which was kind of hilarious. Reminded me of the photo nerds I have spent countless hours around.

I really like the quiet color palette of winter.

Hundreds and hundreds of snow geese