I am moving quietly in my little kitchen. Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” is blasting on the radio, the sun streams through my windows, robins are arguing outside, I’m sipping fireweed tea of my own making.

For breakfast, a thick slice of a cake bread made with squash I grew and black walnuts I gathered, sweetened with maple syrup given to me by a friend.

Stinging nettles are buzzing in the blender, soon to be a pasta dough for the evening’s supper, which I’ll serve with ramps I’d gathered in Wisconsin. Extra nettles get vac sealed for cold winter nights. Maybe I’ll make my friend Alan’s crispy gyromitra mushrooms — a great way to serve this edible false morel, which I’d found the day before in a grove of old pines.

I just finished writing up a dandelion soup recipe, and am prepping to photograph a ramp sauce recipe for Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Extra ramps get pickled — I’d already pickled a batch of rhubarb earlier, because I’ll eat rhubarb any chance I get: on fish, with pheasant, alongside a terrine, you name it.

My chives runneth over. Time to make Chinese onion “pancakes,” which are really a flatbread. Sunchokes all harvested, fiddleheads on deck. All is in motion as I get ready to drive to North Dakota to catch me some walleyes… hopefully.

I feel the seasonal FOMO creep, too. You can’t do everything. Even I can’t, and I do this full time. Turkey hunting, walleye fishing, fishing for native species here in the Twin Cities, playing more with dandelions — there are some recipes for crowns I want to work on, and I desperately want to make dandelion wine again, after so many years — digging prairie turnips, really getting after the edible false morels, tramping the forests for hours, actually putting in time for rollerskiing, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

And this is all regional stuff. I get nice notes from friends and readers almost daily inviting me to their state or province to do something fun. The pull is strong.

Deep breath. It’s OK. Just more fun stuff to do next year. I scribble down a recipe for plachinda, basically a pumpkin empanada made by Germans from Russia in the Great Plains states. Many times these are bland; I plan to punch things up in my own way. Tomorrow’s lunch will be a smoked fish salad with king mackerel from my Florida trip last week. Gotta boil potatoes and eggs to prep…

I stop for a moment, noticing the wild, verdigris-green stains from the nettles on my hands — how different from the vivid orange stains on my hands the day before, after processing my squash. The bird chatter, the smell of green, the light! Something is waking up again. I think it’s me.

For three years, I’ve chased this feeling in other places, other kitchens, other lives.

I am home.

As frenetic as all this may seem, this is my chosen life: Awash in good things to eat that I created. And, when I can, someone I care about to share it with. I am a gatherer, an angler, a hunter. Spring releases me from my winter cage. The days are long, Nature is pulsing breathing heaving in warmth, in sweat, in fertility.

If it looks like a lot, it is a lot.

But right now my life doesn’t yet feel rushed. None of it feels like I am trying to catch up to something, or outrun something. I choose this.

I used to think a life like this needed something (or someone) to complete it, that the table wasn’t set unless every chair were filled. I don’t believe that anymore.

Wanting something (or someone) doesn’t necessarily mean your life is lacking. It can be additive, deepening what’s already present. Desire does not need to be a hole to fill. It can be a current you step into or out of without losing your footing.

The ramps will come and go. There will be another turkey season. The nettles will grow stringy and toughen. Morels will vanish as quickly as they arrived. You take them when they’re here. And as much as you love them, you don’t build your life around their return.

At the end of days like these, I sit on my porch, crack open a Hamm’s beer, and soak it all in. The world keeps moving: birds are settling in, there’s a breeze in the trees, something is scuffing around just out of sight. Probably one of those damn rabbits. But I am not mad at them in these moments.

I can feel it all. I can want things both inside and outside of it. But I am still me, just doing my quirky things. I am home.

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Well, that’s peculiar…

It was a pretty day on Florida’s Gulf coast, and Joe and I were running his 27-foot Shamrock out of the harbor and off to go fishing. The waves were calm, the wind pleasant. But for some reason, we were blasting through the water like a snowplow in a blizzard, water crashing over the bow as if we were in a Nor’Easter.

“Huh. The trim won’t move,” Joe said.

The trim adjusts the angle of the propeller to reduce drag and smooth your ride. If it’s too low, you get this snowplow problem.

We wrangled the trim into shape back at the dock, then had to practically tear the boat apart to find a tiny, inline fuse that we knew had blown. Eventually, after a lot of searching, we found it… and found a 10-amp fuse in there where a 20-amp should have been. Phew! Ultimately, this was an easy fix. Sorta.

The next day, Joe and I made it out to the open Gulf, and had a fun day fishing offshore in sizeable waves, four to six feet. We wanted to see how the boat would run in that, whether he could take his young boys out in that sort of weather; not yet was the consensus. On the way in, we stopped in Destin Harbor to gas up, the first time Joe had needed to refuel this boat.

There was a problem with the starboard tank not filling. Eventually he found that the vent was clogged with gunk. Once cleared, we topped up and headed back home. That’s when we learned that having the same diesel fuel in a boat’s tanks for quite possibly two years can be a very bad thing. The new fuel had stirred up a gunk storm in the fuel tanks, clogging the filter in an instant. The engine refused to run much past idle. Why none of the mechanics who had worked on this boat over the past year bothered to clear the tanks — despite Joe asking them to — only God knows.

Compounding this, last year when I was on this boat’s maiden voyage, the engine blew within a few miles of the dock. I am not a banana — bad luck on a boat — but all this epitomizes the often painful process of shaking out a boat, especially when it’s decades old.

As we limped back to Joe’s still-unfinished dock (which will be pretty sweet when it’s done), I thought about how much harder action becomes when one small, invisible thing isn’t set right before you begin.

In kitchens, we call it mise en place: everything in its place. Tools, garnishes and ingredients that, as a chef, I must have ready before we can open the doors and serve the public. Mise en place applies to many things in life, but especially hunting, foraging, and fishing. It’s all about alignment.

I have long told anyone who will listen that being a hunter, angler or forager is so much more than picking a mushroom, pulling a trigger, or setting a hook. The preparation, the mise en place, is really everything.

When you do any of these things with a guide, it’s the guide who is the hunter, or the angler — or in the case of my friend Jaime, the mushroom hunter. You are being led to where they have done their homework already.

When you fish with guides, you are stepping into someone else’s mise en place. They checked the tides. They topped off the fuel (You’d be surprised how many boat owners miss this and run out of gas on the water). They have rigged the rods, including back-ups, because things always break when fishing. They have water on board for you, and they know where the fish were yesterday — and where they will be when the tides shift at noon.

Joe and I were doing all this ourselves. To be fair, both Joe and I have been deckhands, and Joe has a captain’s license. So we’re not rank amateurs. I’ve seen men (always men) buy a fancy boat and just head out on the waves with it without any notion of seamanship. Read the manual, folks.

I’ve seen it in hunting, too. Boots not broken in. Rifle not sighted in. Skinning knife dull. Cotton clothes in the rain. No scouting. No fitness.

The older I get, the more I realize that the visible moment — a plate hitting the table, a clean shot, a net sliding under a fish — is the smallest, easiest part of the whole thing. What really matters is everything you’ve done beforehand to make that moment work. Sometimes, what you’re really preparing for isn’t the act itself, but for what comes after.

Big moves require big preparation, but even small ones ask something of you. And, funny thing? Good preparation often looks like inaction.

Like waiting for the right time. When to move, when to stay at home — figuratively or literally — or when to turn the boat around when the trim won’t budge or the fuel filter is clogged.

Because you can force it. Plenty of people do. Push through, make the run, deal with whatever breaks along the way.

Or you can take the time to get things right. Good preparation isn’t hesitation. It isn’t fear. It’s care. Care for the work itself, and for whatever, or whoever, will be affected by it.

Fix the small, invisible problems. Clear the lines. Set everything in place.

So that when you finally go, the boat rides the way it’s supposed to — clean, level, and easy. Because once you’re out there, committed, the only thing left is to live with how well you set things up beforehand.

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This is crazy. Rollerskis?! Why are we doing this? Shut up, we know why we’re here.

You’re going to fall, you know. Yes, yes. I know. I’m ready for it. I think.

What if you slip on a curb and knock your front teeth out? You’ll be sorry.

Shut up! Let me concentrate!

My inner voice did me a solid and stayed quiet long enough for me to creep over the cracked pavement, using my ski poles in unison. Not so bad! Then a particularly large crack loomed ahead — not large to you, but when you are in motion on three-foot rollerskis that have no brakes and you’ve never been on them, or any sort of skate in your life, I felt like I was about to be in trouble.

I was right.

You must move one foot forward when you cross a crack on rollerskis, because if you don’t, both hit at the same time, and the loss of momentum sends you pitching forward onto the pavement. I had just learned this, but with my mind spinning, I’d forgotten. Down I went.

Scuffed and embarrassed, I crawled to the grass to regain my footing. Standing up on rollerskis after falling is harder than on regular skis. One of the coaches, Britt, skied over (rolled over?) and gently let me know that it happens, and that you get up like you do on snow: Set your skis perpendicular to the slope and work your way up from there.

Rattled, I got back up and started again, but by then it was obvious that I was definitely the worst skier in the class.

There is a special sort of humiliation reserved for being a beginner, and a deeper one saved for those beginners who are not “naturals.” And it all gets worse when you’re at an age when you’ve spent decades trying to avoid exactly these feelings.

Most of the class was new to rollerskis, but no one was as inexperienced on skis as I am, and most knew how to skate. This is Minnesota, after all. Apparently skiing and skating are part of elementary and middle school gym classes here, and the simple ability to balance on one leg while moving seems to be nearly universal in this place. As a New Jersey native, I am at a distinct disadvantage.

I crept around slowly, just going back and forth, trying to keep upright, with the kind coaches at Endurance United helping me the whole way. It started to sink in: I suck at this. The others were skiing around, moving smoothly. I caught eyes with a few of my classmates. They looked away. Everyone could see me struggling. Everyone.

I am sure I have been the worst in a group at something physical before, but I can’t remember when. Falling down is easy. Just get back up. Being the worst, especially in a group, is harder to hide. I don’t think I’ve ever been that person who makes the others who are struggling feel better: At least I’m not as bad as that guy! Ouch.

That’s when I realized something: it’s not failure we avoid. It’s being seen failing.

Adding to all this is the fact that I am probably in the best shape I’ve been in since the early 1990s, and I am as strong now as I was in college. But none of that matters on rollerskis. It’s all balance, which in my body means the constant firing of every tiny muscle between my hips and toes for the entire time I am strapped into these scary devices.

One of the coaches told me how wonderful it is to see adults fearless enough to start activities like cross country skiing and rollersking, which, with fast wheels and pavement, is a pursuit even more potentially punishing than skiing on snow. I smiled sheepishly and tried not to eat shit on the next crack.

We talked a little about where I am at, about my goal to ski one of the shorter Birkebeiner races a year from now. He encouraged me, and said he thinks I can do it, if I can get the technique of skiing down. If. Ugh.

I’ve been here before.

While I was a natural rifleman, shotgunning was hard for me. Even though I wasn’t the worst shooter I knew, there was a period where the only thing I could do consistently with a shotgun was miss.

I still swear there are kevlar mallards flying around the Sacramento Valley, because I know damn well I hit that greenhead! (No Hank, you didn’t.) One morning I missed 14 straight ducks, annoying the hunter I was with so much he begged me to let him shoot my birds so we could go in and eat breakfast. I refused, but we left early. I was so embarrassed.

Now, hobbling around on my rollerskis, I felt that heat in my face again. Bleh.

Even today, I am just a competent bird hunter, and I am at peace with that. I’m trying to carry that idea into skiing, but this somehow seems more elemental. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get it. I can feel hopelessly behind, like I am trying to open a door that closed for me so long ago I can’t even find the handle. I tell myself it’s too late. Worse, others tell me that. That to do this or that, you must start earlier in life. That this door was never really yours to open at all.

The simple fact is that as adults, we have fought to build competence, and most of us quit the things “we’re just not good at,” usually when no one else is looking. But that mindset carries a lethality written in the atoms of our being: adapt or die.

I’ve been talking about recreational skills mostly, although balance is widely regarded as a key indicator of longevity in humans. The larger truth here is that without a growth mindset, we run the risk of hollowing ourselves out, especially as we reach middle age. It manifests itself everywhere, but very often in job skills. Been passed over for a promotion more than once? Not getting a second interview? Just can’t bring yourself to learn the new computer program or protocol or paradigm that is in demand in your field? You see where I’m going here…

I hate being bad at something. A lot. And yes, I have quit before. I am not perfect. But I’m sticking with this skiing thing. Not because I am good at it. Because I’m not. Right now, I’m just a fallible human, inching over cracks, trying not to fall.

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I am sitting here ready to lock in plans — dates, events, things that need to start moving. Seasons don’t wait. But I can’t do a damn thing unless a whole raft of people get off the dime and answer a simple, yes-or-no question. (Cue the Twins from the Matrix, getting aggravated) I guarantee you have felt this. Maybe you are feeling it right now. What to do?

Actually, it’s really not waiting, per se, because if someone says, “I can give you an answer on Friday,” I’m good: I can file that away in my head and move on. The frustration is really about blocked momentum, about helplessness.

Maybe you’re putting together a hunting or fishing trip, but you need five other people to commit before you can reserve it — and three of them are ghosting you. Or you need that landowner to call you back so you know you have permission to pick mushrooms on her land before the flush is gone. Or you have a business report all set, but you need your boss’ approval. Silence. Or you can’t say yes to a meet-up you really want to go to because your spouse isn’t letting you know where he’ll be two weekends from now.

Nature doesn’t wait. Seasons turn, fish move, mushrooms flush on their own clock. People, on the other hand, can leave you hanging indefinitely.

Most of us like to feel in control of our lives. We do this, then that happens. We move from there. But when someone else — often casually, unknowingly (which makes it worse) — holds the key to your progress… well, let’s just say I can hear your teeth grinding from here. Mine are.

I bet you’re like me: You can move fast, be efficient, slay dragons and conquer your day when you control it. But this loss of agency can send me into a spin. Because if X thing isn’t happening, then I need to pivot to Y. Oh, Y isn’t happening? Fine. I’ll do Z. But if any of those variables are held up by another, all fall into the La Brea Tar Pits of indecision. Grrr…

So, I have an admission to make: I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to avoid depending on others.

You know what I mean. How many of you simply do a task — whether it’s housework, cooking, grunty data entry, tying fishing knots, setting up decoys, cruise directing a family trip — rather than wait for someone else to chip in. Often poorly. I am sure I not the only one here with the unspoken mantra of Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.

This is not always healthy.

Turns out I have a low tolerance for uncertainty. It unsettles me. Again, this is a thing I’ve carried since adolescence. I can pretty much handle anything if I can see it coming. And I lean toward action over patience. Did my decision screw things up? Oh well. At least now I know, and I can (hopefully) fix it. Ski fast, fall hard, get back up.

This plays out in my cooking and outdoor life. I can’t handle anchoring up on a spot and fishing it for five hours without a bite, on the vain hope that if something changes — tide, cloud cover, whatever — that the fish will start biting. And the idea of being forced to hunt deer from a tree stand for days when I could be moving slowly through the forest gets me stabby. One is waiting. The other is doing.

Because I’ve been cooking so long, when I am working with others, I have to will myself to not step in and just do it all. The side effect of that is when I do find partners in the kitchen, they are worth their weight in gold. (Talkin’ to you, Rachel and Josh!)

There is nothing more paralyzing than being ready when others are not.

Let’s stop a second and consider the other party in this equation. Yes, malicious, careless, or lazy people absolutely exist, but they’re easier to dismiss. More often what’s going on is that the other person has her own battles raging in some place you can’t see. Or they’re overwhelmed. Or simply wired differently.

What to me feels like disrespect, incompetence, indecision, or indifference may be none of those in reality.

So I’ve developed some coping mechanisms over the decades.

First, I now simply move on if I get ghosted. I’ll send one clear follow-up, and if I get silence? See ya. Second, I work parallel tracks. I can set a stream of decisions flowing based on whether the person says “yes,” then another if he says “no,” and one more should she simply avoid the question.

The reality is that some of life is waiting. It’s slow, messy… human.

But I still hate being stuck in limbo. Always will. So I try to never leave anyone hanging. I try to answer quickly and cleanly — although you might not always get the answer you want. I am not perfect at this, but it’s my goal.

Because I know what it feels like to be stuck on the other side of silence.

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Am I the only one who doesn’t use earbuds or headphones? Seriously, it seems that way.

I am that guy on the plane who can sit still for hours: no headphones, no laptop, no games on my phone. Maybe sometimes a book, but often not even that.

I often drive hundreds of miles in silence. At least half my day is spent without phone or radio. I think I’ve turned my television on maybe three dozen times in three years. I’ve never once gone on a walk or run listening to music. Most times I leave my phone at home, too — although sometimes I bring it to take a photo, should something cool present itself.

I am also, apparently, the Singularity at the gym. Not only do I not wear earbuds, but I stow my phone in the locker. One day a regular took his earbuds out and said to me, Holy shit. You RAW doggin’ it, bro! I asked him what he meant (pretty sure it wasn’t a pickup line) and he said he’d never seen anyone work out without earbuds or a phone. I just shrugged. Thank you?

A year ago, I wrote about overstimulation and my need for quiet things. Turns out this governs more of my life than I realized. It both helps and hurts me, but mostly it allows me to think clearly, to process Big Things, and — maybe most importantly — to choose who or what commands my attention.

There’s a term for what most of us are swimming in: variable reward. Your brain gets used to a constant drip of novelty: YouTube videos, Instagram Stories, TikTok, podcasts, music. Each one is just different enough to keep you hooked. Not in a dramatic, life-ruining way. But enough that silence starts to feel… off.

It’s not entirely about avoiding the present, at least not consciously. It’s more that when you take the inputs away, something else rises: unstructured thought.

And that can be uncomfortable.

Silence lets things in. Anxieties. Half-formed ideas and unresolved emotions. Old conversations you wish you’d handled differently. Questions that don’t have neat answers. Sometimes thoughts that, if you followed them all the way through, might ask you to change something real in your life.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the silence. It’s what you start asking of yourself once you let silence in.

This can be a lot to sit with. Many of us, myself included at times, end up filling the space instead. I listen to the radio in the morning. I like music on some drives. I can absolutely get lost scrolling Instagram, and I am not above sending a finely tuned (or mildly inappropriate) meme when the moment calls for it.

But I seem to have a lower tolerance for it than most — and a reasonably reliable off switch that lets me enjoy the silence. If I had to guess why, it goes back to being left alone a lot as a kid. I’m the youngest by seven years, so much of my adolescence was spent solo in a gigantic, quiet house that may or may not have been haunted.

You either learn to be OK with your own mind in a place like that, or you don’t.

Most people’s nervous systems run hot. Kids and spouses pull at them. Work pushes back. (Annoying bosses!) Multitasking creates the appearance of productivity, and for hyper-smart, capable people, that shallow focus is often enough to get by. I know people who can scroll, text, post — all at the same time — and still run a damn good Zoom meeting.

I can play that game when I need to. I just can’t live there.

Raw dogging my gym routine is one of the ways I reset. Without the pitter-patter of music or notifications, my world narrows. Footstrike and cadence matter when I’m running. I can feel my heartbeat, my breathing, which muscle is humming — and which one might be edging toward injury.

This habit might also be the reason my blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing are so low and slow as to be almost Ent-like.

In my work, it allows me to achieve the hyperfocus that has served me well.

In the kitchen, it’s the same thing. An aroma alters. A sizzle shifts. The Force tells me the exact moment something goes from done to perfect to over. Out in the woods, it lets me perceive the slightest shift in hue that marks a plant I am looking for within the green chaos of the forest.

When I am quiet, I move slower. I notice more. I read people better.

And, maybe most importantly, I have space to process things before they process me. Sitting with silence has forced me to face things I might otherwise avoid — and to be honest about them, even when that honesty costs me something.

That’s not always pleasant. In fact, sometimes it sucks.

Being alone with your thoughts can feel itchy. Restless. Sometimes even a little frightening. There are days when I’d rather not think about whatever it is knocking around in there. But let them run their course, and most of it settles. Or clarifies. Or at least stops shouting.

There are tradeoffs. I miss podcasts. I miss some of that passive learning people get from filling every empty moment. I can be out of sync with friends who live on their phones. Sometimes I’m slower to respond than the world expects.

I’m OK with that.

Because what I get in return is harder to come by: A sense that my attention belongs to me.

On a walk free of distraction, I notice the call of a bluebird just arrived from its spring migration. Or a change in the wind that tells me snow is coming. At a bar or in a conversation, I spot the way someone pauses or shifts their eyes or touches their face before they answer a question — and can often guess the reason why.

The other day, I was walking without my phone and heard a bird I didn’t recognize. I stood still, trying to place it, scanning tree after tree. There it was! A teeny, kinda spazzy songbird flitting around in the branches. Pointy beak. Flycatcher? Nope. Flit, flit, ooooh! Scarlet hat flash! Ruby-crowned kinglet! I stood listening to his song for a bit. Bird clocked, I looked back at my watch. Nine minutes had passed as if by magic.

All this isn’t about earbuds. Or phones. Or being some kind of Luddite or analog purist. It’s about leaving a little space in your day where nothing is trying to steal your attention. Just to see what shows up when it’s yours again.

You don’t have to go as far as I do. Most people won’t, and probably shouldn’t.

But try it. Go for a walk without anything in your ears. Drive ten minutes without turning something on. Stand in line and don’t reach for your phone. It will probably feel strange at first. It still does for me sometimes.

Give it a minute.

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I published this essay in 2011, fifteen years ago. It remains the most widely read essay I’ve ever written, and was included in the 2012 edition of the anthology Best Food Writing. I wanted to revisit it all these years later, to revise and update it for how I’ve changed over a decade-and-a-half.

So I sat down on a quiet morning and read it again. And I was surprised: Other than the dates, and the book events that seem downright antediluvian to me now, there isn’t much I’d change. Although after 15 years, I get far less blowback for my hunting now than I did in 2011 — even before I moved from California to Minnesota.

I have changed in so many ways since then, but in this way I have not. It feels good. Enjoy this essay. I’d like to hear from you afterwards in the comments.

~ Hank

I have been dealing a lot of death lately. I’ve hunted five of the past eight days, and have killed birds on each trip. My larder is filling, and Holly and I are eating well. Lots of duck, some pheasant and even a little of the venison I have left over from the 2010 season. That is the good side of all this, the side of hunting that most people can embrace. I hunt for a lot of reasons, but for me the endgame is always the table.

It is the journey to that table that can sometimes give people pause. What I do to put meat in my freezer is alien to most, anathema to some. In the past seven years, I can count on one hand the times I’ve had to buy meat for the home. [It’s now been 22 years!] This fact alone makes me an outlier, an anomaly. And that I am unashamed -- proud, really -- of this seems to cause a lot of folks I meet to look at me funny: I am a killer in their midst.

Not too long ago, I was at a book signing event for Hunt Gather Cook when a young woman approached me. She was very excited about foraging, and she had loved that section of my book. Then her face darkened. She told me she’d also read my section on hunting. “How can you enjoy killing so much? I just don’t understand it. You seem like such a nice person, too.” It took a few minutes for me to explain myself to her, and I am grateful that she listened. She left, I think, with a different opinion.

A few weeks later, I was at the University of Oregon talking about wild food to some students. When I mentioned hunting, I could feel the temperature in the room drop. It occurred to me that no one there was a hunter, nor were they close to any hunters. I called for a show of hands. One guy raised his. I asked him briefly about his hunting experience, and it was obvious that it had been traumatic for the poor kid. I let the topic slide and moved on to mushrooms.

When I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I spoke with more than 100 diners during my book dinner at the excellent restaurant Craigie on Main. Only four were hunters, although a few more wanted to start. Over the course of the night, I fielded weird question after weird question from diner after diner. Have I ever shot someone? Did I actually eat what I shot? Wasn’t I afraid of diseases? It was a stark show of ignorance. Not stupidity, mind you, just an utter lack of knowledge of what hunting is all about.

To be sure, these encounters were in college towns among a certain set of people. I had some book events, notably those in Montana, Pittsburgh and Austin, where most everyone who attended either hunted or was at least familiar with it. And in most places I could be assured of a healthy smattering of fellow hook-and-bullet types or farmers, who are equally familiar with the death of animals.

But the fact remains: Most people reading this have never killed anything larger than an insect, and among those who have it’s usually a been fish, or an accident -- like running over someone’s dog. Most people have no idea what it’s like to take the life of another creature, let alone why someone would actively seek to do so. Let me try to explain to you the way I did to my young foraging friend on book tour. Let me tell you what it means to kill, at least for me.

To deal death is to experience your world exploding. It is an avalanche of emotion and thought and action.

Armed with a shotgun, it is often done without thought, on instinct alone. A flushing grouse gives you no more than a few seconds to pull the trigger before it disappears into the alders. A rabbit can leap back into the brambles in even less time. Unless you are perfect in that split second, the animal wins. And being human, we are far from perfect. Even with ducks, where you often have plenty of time to prepare for the shot, their speed and agility are more than adequate defenses. We hunters fail more than we succeed.

This is why we will often whoop it up when we finally bring a bird down: We are not being callous, rejoicing in the animal’s death. It is a hard-wired reaction to succeeding at something you have been working for days, months, even years to achieve. In some corner of your brain, it means you will eat today. This reaction can look repulsive from the outside.

Should you arm yourself with a rifle, you then must wrestle your conscious mind. Buck fever is real. A huge set of antlers will hypnotize the best of us, man and woman alike. Even if the animal lacks antlers, as mine often do, you have to contend with The Twin Voices: On one shoulder sits a voice shouting, Shoot! Shoot! You might not get another chance! On the other shoulder sits another voice, grave and calm: Be careful. You must not put that bullet in a place where the animal will suffer. Better to pass a shot than wound an animal. A wise hunter does not kill lightly.

In that moment when the game shows itself and you ready yourself to shoot, all that matters is that you do your job correctly. And that job is to kill cleanly and quickly. The animal deserves it; we would want no less were the tables turned. And make no mistake: A great many hunters, myself included, do this mental table-turning with some frequency. Seeing animals die so often makes us think of our own death, and I can assure you most of us would rather die with a well-placed shot than wither in a hospital.

We also know all too well that we are fallible creatures. When we fail to kill cleanly, when we wound the animals we seek, it is our duty to end their suffering ourselves. If there is a moment in this whole process that breaks my heart, it is this one. Everything wants to live, and will try anything it can to escape you. We see ourselves in this struggle, feel tremendous empathy for the struggling bird, the fleeing deer. It is a soul-searing moment where part of you marvels at the animal’s drive to live -- to escape! -- at the same time the rest of you is consumed with capturing it as fast as possible so you can end this miserable business. This internal conflict is, to me, what being human is all about. A coyote or a hawk has no remorse. We do.

I am not ashamed to tell you that I have shed a tear more than once when I’ve had to deliver the coup de grace to a duck. I’m not sure what it is about ducks, but they affect me more than other animals. I always apologize to it, knowing full well that this is a weak gesture designed mostly to help me feel better. But it does help me feel better. At least a little. So I keep doing it.

As the moment of killing fades, death rides home with you in the back of the truck. Once home, you must transmogrify the animal you killed into meat. The transformation is a mystical one, and every time I “dress” game -- such a pleasant euphemism, that -- I marvel at how fast my mind toggles from hunter to butcher to cook.

It is a necessary process, and one that is vital to why I have chosen this life, why I am a hunter.

I look down at my keyboard and see death under my fingernails. I smell the fat and gore and meat of dead ducks upon me; it’s been a good week of hunting. And because I eat everything on a duck but the quack, I have become intimate with the insides of waterfowl. Over the years, I’ve gutted and taken apart so many animals that I know the roadmap blindfolded. And that road leads to meals long remembered. I reach into a deer’s guts without thought: I want those kidneys, and that liver. I turn my arm upwards and wrap my fingers around its stopped heart, slick and firm. It will become heart cutlets, or jaegerschnitzel.

Once plucked and gutted, I can take apart a duck in 90 seconds. Maybe less. My fingers intuitively know which way and how hard to pluck each feather from a pheasant’s carcass. I know just where to put my boning knife, sharp as lightning, to slice the tendons that hold a hog’s tongue into its head. I use the same knife to caress its hind legs, separating the natural muscle groups apart along each seam. Some will become roasts, others salami. Animal becomes food. The pop of a goose’s thigh bone disjointing from its body no longer sickens me; all it means is that I need to slip my knife under that bone and around the coveted “oyster,” the best bite on any bird.

Wasting meat is the sin I cannot forgive. When I kill an animal, its death is on my hands, and those animals to whom I’ve had to deliver the coup de grace are especially close to me. There is a bond between us that requires that I do my part to ensure they did not die for nothing. This is why I spend so much time creating recipes for every part of the animal. Nature wastes nothing, and neither should I. It pains me to know that some hunters do not share this feeling, that they care only for backstraps or breasts -- and while I know that coyotes and buzzards will eat what we do not, I do not hunt to feed those creatures.

You might ask me that with all this, why bother eating meat at all? Why deal with all the moral and emotional implications? In the face of such constant death, is it not better to be a vegetarian?

For me, no. It is a cold fact that no matter what your dietary choice, animals die so you can eat. Just because you choose not to eat the flesh of animals does not mean that their homes did not fall to the plow to become acres of vegetables and soybeans, wheat and corn. Habitat, more than anything, determines the health of a species. The passenger pigeon may have been snuffed out by wanton, unregulated hunting, but it was the massive destruction of virgin forest -- forest cleared to grow crops -- that brought the pigeon to the brink. I have nothing against vegetarians, and the vast majority I’ve met understand what I do and respect it. But to those few who do not, I say this: We all have blood on our hands, only I can see mine.

It all boils down to intimacy. Hunting has created an uncommon closeness between the animals I pursue, the meat I eat, and my own sense of self. There is a terrible seriousness to it all the underlies the thrill of the chase, the camaraderie of being with my fellow hunters and deep sense of calm I feel when alone in the wild. I welcome this weight: It fuels my desire to make something magical with the mortal remains of the game I manage to bring home. It is a feeling every hunter who’s ever stared into the freezer at that special strip of backstrap, or hard-won bird or beast understands.

Meat should be special. It has been for most of human existence. And no modern human understands this more than a hunter. I am at peace with killing my own meat because for me, every duck breast, every hog tongue, every deer heart is a story, not of conquest, but of communion.

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Ahhh, so nice. Perfect. A little to the left. A little harder. There it is! Yes!

A perfect black walnut half popped out of its labyrinthine shell. (Not what you expected? Get your mind out of the gutter. Or not.)

I spent a great many hours armed with a Grandpa’s Goody Getter nut cracker and its accompanying pair of nut snips (yes, I am sniggering like Beavis and Butthead, too) to plow through I-don’t-know-how-many pounds of black walnuts this month.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how these walnuts helped me break the spell of procrastination. Now that I’ve gotten through them all, plus a couple pounds of pecans, I am left with an odd awareness of a quirk in my personality: hyperfocus.

Nearly every day, if I had a little gap in my work schedule, I’d sit at my dining room table and crack nuts. It’s always a zen-like task, but I soon found myself eagerly learning the ins and outs of a nut’s geography, which can be complicated. Many folds and layers, a few key gaps and then the glorious nut within.

Nut after nut, attempt after attempt, I improved. You need to just crack the nut, not pulverize it with too much force. Read the shell, and apply only as much force as needed, then back off. Another controlled move, just a little more compression, and you’ll open her up nicely!

Then you use those snips to carefully free the nut from the shell. You need to know exactly where to apply pressure so the shell falls away freely. Nuts in general and black walnuts in particular are soft and yielding, so if you try to force things, they’ll break and you’ll be sad.

Over time, I got so good at this that I’d get four pretty lobes and the “horseshoe” piece in the center out of almost every walnut, and sometimes I’d achieve Perfect Half Status. When I moved on to the easier-to-shell pecans, Perfect Half Status became the standard goal, with the Immaculate Whole being my stretch goal.

Lobe after lobe, my container began to fill with nutmeats. Until finally I found myself with a shade more than two pounds of walnuts, plus a half pound of pecans. Admiring my work, I nibbled a nut and thought about all this.

I fall into this same state when I am cracking crabs and lobsters, making filled pasta like tortellini or malloreddus, winnowing debris from foraged berries, as well as a few other things.

I love that I have this in me. I can lose my sense of time and my surroundings — only the task in front of my face matters. My whole being funnels into that task and I feel a clarity and pleasure I rarely feel elsewhere.

Everything narrows and speeds up. Connections become clearer: Oh, put your snips there and you get a satisfying result. Don’t stop doing that then. Patterns reveal themselves. My mind stills.

Hyperfocus isn’t a superpower, however. After every session of nut cracking, I often needed to rest on the couch or take a walk or work out. The aftermath often leaves me drained and fuzzy.

I happen to be skilled at choosing where to allow my hyperfocus to, well, focus, but many I know aren’t. I know some people who all too often zero in on minor tasks at the expense of the more significant tasks they face. In these cases, their hyperfocus becomes a servant of their tendency to procrastinate — they find themselves snapping out of a two-hour session researching historical efforts to breed a faster-maturing strain of hopniss when they really ought to be finishing that manuscript.

There’s nothing inherently noble about hyperfocus. It doesn’t care what it’s aimed at. Give it walnuts and you get perfect halves. Give it the wrong thing and you can lose an afternoon, a day, a week, chasing something that doesn’t matter.

Refer a friend

But aim well and it becomes something else entirely.

Because what hyperfocus really is, at its core, is attention. Undivided, deliberate attention. The kind that notices small shifts, that learns the contours of a thing, that understands when to press and when to ease off. The kind that improves with every repetition.

And that sort of attention is rare.

Most of us live scattered lives, pulled in a dozen directions at once. We half-listen, half-work, half-notice. We skim the surface of things and call it good.

Hyperfocus is the opposite of that. It asks you to be fully there. To pay attention long enough to get it right. You can’t employ it on everything or you’ll burn out. Save it for the things that matter.

A pile of black walnuts? Maybe. Definitely with a piece of writing, or a skill you’re trying to learn. Or anything else that benefits from knowing exactly where to apply pressure, and when to let things open on their own.

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This is a conversation space exclusively for paid subscribers—kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post questions and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

The first office hours will…

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We had a ton of questions from paid subscribers this time around, and I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can without letting this run too long. Some of them could easily turn into essays of their own, so I’ll abridge here and there for the sake of flow.

Everyone gets to read the answers, but only paid subscribers get to ask the questions.

And stay tuned for our very first Back of House Office Hours on Wednesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. Central. We’ll gather in the chat section of the site to talk food, cooking, hunting, foraging — whatever’s on your mind. That one’s for paid subscribers, too.

Alright, let’s get things rolling.

Dave asked a huge question about top dishes for basically everything, so sorry, man, way too long. But I’ll narrow it down to one bit you asked about which is cooking salmon. You wanted dishes with easy prep and easy ingredients, too.

OK, so for salmon it’s almost always either smoked or seared or raw. Salmon is so fatty, and is relatively soft, so frying isn’t a great option here. For many people, salmon arrives in a rush of fish — from a run if you live in Salmon Nation, or from trips to Alaska or other places where you can catch a bunch of fish. So making a batch of smoked salmon, then vac sealing and freezing, is a perfect option. Once you have that, thaw and eat in any number of ways.

Seared is also perfect, because you can get a great crust on one side, and meltingly tender and rich fish inside. You’ll want to follow my method for seared fish.

And raw? Man, I love raw salmon! But you do need to freeze it for a week or so first, ideally in a chest freezer, which is colder. This also answers Sal’s question about raw salmon and worms; yes, they can be present in fish, but they die when frozen and are usually too small to see. Other than sashimi or sushi, I love me some salmon ceviche.

Neil asks if I have anything against slow cookers and pressure cookers?

Sharp eye, and the answer is no, but I don’t need them for my lifestyle. I work from home, so time is my ally. And food is always better cooked traditionally. I’ll die on that hill. With a slow cooker, you need to brown meat and vegetables in a pan first, then move to a slow cooker. This is fine if you do it in the morning, then head out to work, but I don’t have that issue. Same with a pressure cooker. Beans, for example, are always better cooked slowly in a pot, but I totally understand that letting something simmer slowly on the stove isn’t an option in many households.

Fear not, however. I am including places to use a slow cooker, air fryer, or pressure cooker throughout the new edition of Buck Buck Moose!

That leads me to Steve’s question about where we are in the updating process for Buck Buck Moose?

I am close to turning in the revised manuscript for the book, which will expand by about 30 pages, have about 30 new recipes in it, a few recipes removed from the old version — I polled everyone earlier this year to get a sense of the least popular ones — and updated photos, techniques, tips, and tricks throughout.

We are still on track to release the anniversary edition around Labor Day of this year. Stay tuned!

Sharon asks a deeper question: How do you bring the “joy” back into hunting, fishing, and foraging when the ultimate goal of the trip is to resupply your food sources? The pursuit is always wonderful, but the head is full of “must succeed” thoughts… failure to procure can feel like a failure of self.

There are a few things that spring to mind. First is, well, that’s the game we play here. Hunting, fishing, and foraging are never guaranteed. It’s what makes these pursuits thrilling. The downside to that is you get bum days. It happens to us all. A lot. My answer over the past decade or two always has been that tomorrow is another day. And if you fail at a deer hunt, and don’t have a second chance, well, target rabbits or ducks or fish or whatever.

That’s also the beauty — and the joy — of a life fueled by the wild: Your diet is not predetermined. I love that so much, and the opportunity opened by a “failed” hunt or fishing trip to get back out there and fill my larder with something different never ceases to excite me.

Tyler asks about fleischkuechle, the signature meat pie of the Germans from Russia living in the Great Plains. I’ll have a recipe for them in my upcoming book Grasslands, which I hope to have out in 2028, but for now, this should help.

The pastry dough is always very soft and malleable, and usually is moistened with milk, not water. The uncooked pies are floppy and slightly difficult to move around, but this makes them extra puffy and crispy once fried — and that answers your other question: Fleischkuechle are fried. A baked one starts to look more like a runza or bierock.

As for a filling, you want to stay simple if you want to be traditional. In many cases, the filling is simply onions, ground beef, salt and pepper. But this is America: Fill thine fleischkuechle with whatever makes you happy.

Jacquelyn asks what specialized ingredients are important to source online vs. leave out or find a substitute? Is there anything you keep on an order repeat or use for multiple dishes?

This is a tough one, because your kitchen is different from mine. But there are a few signature ingredients I use a lot, add a ton of flavor to lots of dishes, and are worth buying online. Here are a few off the top of my head:

• Smoked paprika. Get the good stuff and keep it in the dark, so it doesn’t lose its color and flavor too quickly.

• Smoked salt. My wintertime, cheater’s way to add smokiness to foods. You need this in your life, and it’s 1000 times better than liquid smoke.

• Squash or pumpkinseed oil. Dark, nutty, mysterious, full of flavor. I put it on almost any German or central European dish I cook. It’s a finishing oil, though, you don’t cook in it.

• Dried mushrooms. Ideally ones you’ve gathered yourself, but store-bought is fine. Really great additions to basically anything, and the soaking water when you rehydrate them is more or less an instant broth.

• Dried red chiles and frozen roasted green chiles. Absolutely vital for my Mexican and Southwest cooking.

Ron asks what is my thought process on planning a menu? How do I determine courses or the side dishes that go best with the main entree (i.e. balancing sweet vs savory vs. sour vs. salty, etc. between the dishes)

Great question. I always start with a dessert and work backwards, in terms of both portion size and flavors. This way your guests are eager for — and have room for — your cool dessert, even if it’s just berries in heavy cream. But a great dessert acts as The Last Word in a menu, echoing everything that came before and leaving everyone with a dreamy feeling when they sit up from the table.

Think about things like cream, fruit, nuts, grains like rye, cheeses, even chocolate. They can all take a star turn in the savory part of the meal before they shine in the last act.

As for the main flavors, I only separate them in a dish when it’s a multi-course meal — in that case, you might see a course that’s only salty, or savory, or sour, because the next course will balance things. In normal settings, I make sure each dish is balanced within itself.

Tammy asks about making fish sauce. Can it be done with fish found inland in the US and Canada?

Short answer: yes. Ideally, though, you use oily fish with energetic digestive systems, because those fish have the enzymes needed for this process to work fully. You can add koji to the mix, too, which alleviates that need. Generally speaking, you need about 20 percent salt by weight of fish + water, then lots of heat, then patience. The process can take months.

All this said, I find that the juice is just about worth the squeeze. I love the fish sauce I made in Sacramento, with fresh anchovies we’d used as bait. But I’ll be honest: I still have half the quart I made in 2020. So while it’s a fun project, unless you go through a ton of fish sauce, probably better to buy it.

Will asks about writing: Could you describe your writing process/habits/discipline (or whatever you do to get from idea to something tangible?

First thing to remember is to just write. Don’t wait for the perfect first sentence to come to you, or you may find yourself staring at a blank screen for a while. There’s a concept of “clearing your throat” in writing, where you need a while tapping at the keyboard before you suddenly type that lead sentence you’d been looking for.

Editing is your friend. Even for me, someone who has written professionally for 34 years. Improving a piece of writing is far easier than trying to write something great the first time around.

Good writing isn’t linear. I often have an idea in my head for days, weeks, or months before I sit down to write about it. And then the writing flows like a torrent, because I’ve rolling the idea for the essay or article in my mind, sometimes subconsciously, enough times where structure, points, and even sometimes nifty turns of phrases just spill out. Respect the flow. Stop and write when it happens.

Finally, “kill your babies.” This means that no matter how good a turn of phrase you’ve just written, kill it if it does not serve the larger piece of writing. If this makes you sad, cut it and copy it to a file of “good turns of phrase” or something. I just kill them. I’ll think of something else clever at some point… I hope.

Mike asks about my pan preferences for searing and pan-roasting.

He uses cast iron, and that’s cool, but cast iron is really heavy. So I use it where that weight — and the heat retention it brings — is useful, like cornbread or serious frying, like chicken or fish. I prefer carbon and stainless steel.

They are lighter, can get very hot, and are surprisingly non-stick when you heat them up well before adding whatever it is you are searing. Carbon steel has an advantage in that it’s usually seasoned like your cast iron. But you can also strip off that seasoning with acidic foods. Stainless, if you let the steel get hot, then add oil, then let the oil get hot, is every bit as non-stick — but learning the precise moments to add oil, add the item, and the vital shimmy you give the food the instant it hits the pan can all be tricky.

Sawyer asks are there any specific dishes or cooking methods that initially seemed overwhelming or difficult but once you became familiar with it, it became a staple?

Yes, but it’s been a long while. Risotto springs to mind. Making a good risotto can be intimidating at first — all that stirring and adding cooking liquid — but once you internalize the process, you can do it without thought, and then improvise.

I think another would be velveting meats and fish in the Chinese style. It’s a pre-fry, often in coolish oil, meant to set a coating that can be a full batter or just the lightest, gossamer coat of corn starch. It’s a bit similar to the initial frying step in making French fries. Velveting can be a bit of a production, but once you have your set-up, you’ll never look back when you are making a stir fry. It’s life changing to be able to make authentic Chinese food at home.

I’ll finish with this one from Jimmy: You mention being an adult-onset hunter, but what is the oldest onset you’ve seen? I’m 50 and planning to learn to hunt, but come from a non-hunting family (though we do plenty of fishing and foraging.) Only firearm I’ve shot was skeet shooting once with some friends, though I am working on archery. Just looking for advice for the extremely late-onset hunter!

It’s never too late. I know of 70-year-olds shooting their first deer, and we’ve had 60-year-old newbies at our culinary hunts. The only limiting factor is your fitness. If you can physically do the hunt, you can learn the rest.

I also find that older people tend to be less self-conscious about sucking at something new than, say, men in their 30s. Older folks of both genders tend to be more at peace with themselves, and more eager to learn new things without shame of being terrible at it — which, paradoxically, tends to make their time at being truly terrible at that activity much shorter. Because y’all actually listen!

That’s probably enough for one AMA before this turns into a small book. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions! I always enjoy seeing what’s on people’s minds.

If you’d like to ask something for the next round, remember that questions come from paid subscribers. And if you’re one of those already, I’ll see you at our first Back of House Office Hours on March 25.

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Hey all,

As a thank you to the folks who support To the Bone with a paid subscription, I’m hosting an AMA — an Ask Me Anything sesh, just for you.

Ask me anything you like: cooking, wild food, writing, hunting and fishing, kitchen disasters, the weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten, how recipes get developed, or anything else you’re curious about. Nothing’s off limits.

The best questions are usually the ones that start with “Why do you…” or “How did you learn to…”

I’ll answer as many questions as I can, publicly here next week — unless you’d rather keep it private, in which case I’ll send you a personal reply.

PS: If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is a good moment: only paid members get to ask the questions. (Note that annual paid members also get a signed copy of one of my cookbooks, which covers a good chunk of the subscription price.)

If you’re already a paid subscriber, drop your question in the comments, DM me, or email hank@huntgathercook.com by Sunday at 5 p.m. Central.

Not a paid subscriber yet?

This AMA is one of the perks of supporting To the Bone. Paid subscribers help keep my lights on — and they get extra benefits along the way. For example:

A signed cookbook with an annual subscription.
When you sign up or renew annually (not month-to-month), I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my four most recent cookbooks. Just message me with which book you want and where to send it.

A To the Bone sticker.
If you want one, message me your address and I’ll pop it in the mail.

First call on events.
Paid members hear about my workshops, culinary hunts, and other ticketed events at least a week before I mention them anywhere else.

Subscriber-only recipes.
Every so often I share recipes exclusively with paid readers.

And starting later this month:

‘Back of House Office Hours’

I’m launching a paid-subscriber chat where we can talk directly — cooking questions, techniques, ingredients, gear, whatever’s on your mind. Each week will have a rough topic to keep us on track.

I’m planning to host these Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Central, at least twice a month (more if people want them).

Think of it like hanging out with me at the restaurant bar after service.

I know money is tight everywhere right now — it is for me, too. But reader subscriptions are increasingly what keep independent writers going, myself included. If you enjoy what I do here, becoming a paid subscriber is the best way to support it.

And you get to ask me anything.

So go ahead: what do you want to know?

Questions are open until Sunday at 5 p.m. Central. I’ll publish the answers next week.

~ Hank

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“Wanna go to a meat raffle?”

Um, hell yeah I do!

And so began my fascination with this unusual social phenomenon popular in the Midwest, New England and beyond.

You could be forgiven for thinking that a meat raffle is an especially spicy party at a leather bar. I mean, my inner 13-year-old snickered, too. But in reality it’s a fairly wholesome tradition where local butchers offer meat trays to local groups raising money for charity, trays that are then raffled off in bars and VFW halls.

Yes, meat trays. As in fantastical arrays of fleisch und wurst, steaks and ground meat, chicken, sometimes seafood — I’ve seen lobster tails! — roasts, pork, and especially sausages. The Weiner Tower is an especially coveted prize at one meat raffle I have been to — and yes, they are absolutely encouraging that smirk on your face right now.

My friend Jaime loves meat raffles, so she has been my guide on this magical meaty tour. That day she asked me, she told me to meet her at Heldt’s Bar in Mayer, Minnesota. Not my usual stomping grounds, Mayer is about an hour west of St. Paul, just south of her hometown of Watertown.

Heldt’s is exactly the sort of bar where a meat raffle should take place. Rough, but not like a biker bar, just… well loved. A dive. But, importantly, a dive where the community gathers. Every good meat raffle is at a divey place. It’s part of the charm, the blue-collar vibe.

I know of one meat raffle at a bougie Minneapolis bar, where the trays are all fawncy, organic blah blah blah. Sorry, man, just stop. Meat raffles are for drinking Hamm’s if you’re on the St. Paul side of the Mississippi, Grain Belt on the Minneapolis side. You eat crappy chicken wings, greasy burgers, maybe a war crime of a taco served in a hard shell with iceberg lettuce and meat “seasoned” with McCormick’s mild taco seasoning. Coney dogs are my fave.

You know the place. In fact, if you’ve watched the movies “Downtown Owl” or “Grumpy Old Men,” you’ve literally seen it. I’ve been to meat raffles at The Spot, which was the bar in “Owl,” as well as Half Time Rec, which was Slippery’s in “Grumpy Old Men.” Both are in St. Paul.

Conjure an image of a vaguely seedy, yet welcoming, Midwestern dive bar, and that’s what you’re looking for. The scent of fryer grease, stale beer, sweat and bad perfume lingers in corners, country music blares — in this case “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Adkins — the hubub of quiet conversations underlying everything.

At Heldt’s, the meat array was laid out on the pool table covered by a plastic checkered tablecloth. No ice. But it was winter, so who cared? The Vikings were choking as usual, so that was the topic of conversation in a bar absolutely buzzing… at 4:30 p.m.

Because yes, folks, early starts are a feature of meat raffles. This is for a few reasons. First, it gets people in the bar at otherwise slow hours. And you drink when you’re at a bar. Natch. Second, meat raffles are all about charity, so there are often kids running around, either selling raffle tickets or talking about the cause we’re all there for.

Sometimes it’s to raise money for a school trip, sometimes for sports or band equipment, or for a sick member of the community, or for the local firehouse or food shelf. This last one always amuses me, because, well, why not just donate the meat? My guess is they raise more cash with the raffle, but who knows?

About that meat. This is where we get to real origin of meat raffles.

At least in the Midwest, the synergy between small town butcher shops and small town bars, beer halls or social clubs created the raffle sometime in the 1800s. Germans and Czechs are the likely originators, but no one really knows. A butcher would donate some of his wares to the beer hall, where they’d be raffled off. In the process, the butcher would get a captive audience for several hours who would remember who provided the meat because his logo, address, and phone number was on every tray.

This pattern hasn’t changed. We are blessed in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa to have lots and lots of family-owned, local butchers who have survived the tyranny of the supermarket. Many have been in business a century, and are cherished heirlooms of towns throughout the region.

Uncle Ron’s Smokehouse supplied the bounty for the raffle at Heldt’s, Borchert’s Meat Market at the most recent one I went to, last week at Half Time Rec. At Heldt’s, Jaime and I sat down at a high top, anticipation high. She ordered a Mich Golden Light, I ordered a Grain Belt. You don’t drink big, fancy beers at a meat raffle. Not only does it run against the ethos of the affair, but you’re also likely to be drinking four to eight, so if you’re knockin’ back big IPAs you’ll get potted in a hurry. You need to keep your wits about you.

The waitress came by and we each paid $2 for a ticket. That’s a wild thing about meat raffles: I’ve never seen a ticket more than $5. So if you win, the reward for your bet can be substantial. In Minnesota, tickets are little pieces of paper with your number printed on them. I hear in New England, paddles with a number are more common — meaning you have the same number throughout the raffle. In Canada, there’s a thing called Meat Darts, where you play darts for meat prizes. I can get behind that.

Oh, and another awesome little bit of Midwestern love: Most meat raffles only allow you to buy one ticket per round, and the waitresses offer tickets from opposite sides of the bar each round, so if you missed a chance to get in on the action on one round, they start with you next.

This little bit of democratic socialism warms my heart. I don’t care how rich you are, what you do in the community — you could be the town banker, or a wealthy farmer —you still only have the one chance to win. I always get grumpy at the “capitalist” raffles, where, in theory, one person could buy all the tickets. Bleh.

I soon realized why Jaime likes meat raffles: She wins. I’ve been to three with her, and no matter if her boyfriend Connor, her high school friends, or our mutual friends come with (yes, I am using that very Midwestern construction on purpose, don’t ya know), she always wins.

Last week she won on the first round, and the haul was massive: snack sticks, giant mutant chicken breasts, sausage and a steak. Now etiquette kicks in: Once you win, lay back, at least for a round or three. Lady Luck can be weird, and we’ve all seen that one table that wins over and over at raffles. Do that at a rural meat raffle and they’ll run you out of town on a rail.

I love this. It’s a quiet recognition that we are part of a community. Meat, historically so prized and valued, is to be shared, not hoarded. It’s showy and greedy and “extra” to want to win more than once.

I had resigned myself to simply basking in the glow of Jaime’s winnings. After nearly a dozen meat raffles, I had yet to win. No weiner tower for me, alas. But you can’t win if you’re not in, so I bought tickets at every round last week.

My ritual is to never look at the number after I pick one up randomly from the tray of little folded scraps of paper. It’s bad luck. Ticket bought, Jaime and Alan, who was a meat raffle virgin, and I returned to chatting about weird mushrooms and other geeky matters, like which chanterelle species is best.

“Number Seven! Number SEVEN!”

We all turned over our bits of paper. And there it was: Number seven. I let out my best barbaric yawp, which probably sounded more like, ja, hey, you betchya dat’s me!!! and bounded up to the table to grab my meat.

We were mostly through the raffle by then, but I spied a packet that had a pretty packet of bratwurst in it, plus loose Italian sausage, country pork ribs, and some weird beef eye round thingy I didn’t recognize. I am a sucker for a nice sausage, so had to have it. I returned to the table, beaming.

The next day, I decided to brown the loose Italian sausage and the eye round “steaks,” which had been pre-spiced, and use them for my famous New Jersey red sauce. I added bits of things from my kitchen, old onions, a half a goose breast minced up, some chopped fennel bulb, and as my house began to smell like a home, I thought about how wonderfully communal these events are.

And it’s not just meat raffles. There’s a thing called plant bingo, where you play bingo for potted plants — a fantastic, vegetarian-friendly version of a meat raffle. And animal bingo is my fave. I have a dear friend who always tries to attend the “chicken shit bingo” games at a little rural bar in North Dakota. I have another friend who told me that at homecoming football games, they set up a grid, let cows onto the field, and wherever one dropped a cow pie, that number won a huge tray of meat. Cow shit bingo!? I am still laughing about this as I type.

It’s March now, our winter is ending. Meat raffles go on year round, but to me they are a winter thing. We hunker down so much in the Great Dark. A late afternoon or early evening meat raffle is just the thing to get us out of our nests and into our community. A place to meet friends, make new ones, hoist a beer or six — Hamm’s for me, please — and maybe, just maybe, come home flush with some tasty meat from your local butcher.

I am not mad at that. At all.

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For more than two years, nearly fifteen pounds of black walnuts have sat on a blue tarp in my basement, tucked next to a bunch of old paint cans.

You know why they’re still there: The walnuts are still in their shells. And black walnuts are hard to crack, even though I own a fantastic nutcracker. These walnuts have become my talisman for procrastination…

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Our “files” can languish on the mental sh…

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As paid members of To the Bone, one of your benefits is first crack at these hunts. No …

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I am sitting here eating Triscuits and cheese and several slices of a wild boar salami I made from a hog killed in Oklahoma in December. A dozen Eurasian collared doves rest in my freezer, alongside packets of vacuum-sealed lambsquarters, a few snow goose breasts, and lots of venison.

In a way, I live off loving the unloved: those plants, fish, and game…

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Setting my phone down, I sat with it a moment. There it was, that was it. I was afra…

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This juniper mustard sauce is a thick, mayo-ish concoction based in spicy mustard that is tamed with oil, thickened with egg yolks, and laced with ground juniper berries. It’s a knockout with cold meats of any kind.

The other day I had corned a few deer tongues — yes, I know that’s an odd sentence — and was casting about for a sauce to serve them with. Turns out this juniper mustard sauce was just the thing.

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