Freezer Tyranny

Stage fright, planes on the tarmac, and my changing relationship with food

I hate my full freezer. It belongs to a life I no longer live.

Every time I open it, its contents silently scold me. Mostly vacuum-sealed, cocooned packets of fish and game, sometimes plants and mushrooms, stare back at me with the disdain of a Parisian waiter looming over a tourist struggling to order in French. Are we ready yet? No? I see…

Some items mean little more to me than a future Wednesday night meal. But most of these frozen packets of protein represent unrealized potential — or worse, memory.

A catfishing trip to North Dakota. A celebrated hunt for a big buck. A wonderful experience chasing prairie chickens in Nebraska. The physical remains of these memories, locked in ice, practically shout at me whenever I near the freezer.

Most depressing of all are those packets that represent eureka moments or potentially innovative dishes. I’ve had a vac bag for more than a year of sharp-tailed grouse meat and giblets waiting on a Germanic take on Cajun dirty rice, using barley. I have deer offal that needs to be made into the awesomely named “son-of-a-bitch stew” for the revised version of Buck Buck Moose.

It’s funny. I’ve written about full freezers more than once. And the feelings I am feeling now have always been there, but now for some reason they’re stronger… OK, if I am honest, I know exactly why. It’s because my life has changed radically not only in the past three years, but even moreso in the past three months.

My personal life is entering a new chapter, one that is uncertain and laced equally with hope for the future and fear. Add to that a fundamental shift in how I am thinking about food.

While I will never become a vegetarian, over the past year I have come to realize how little meat and fish I need to make myself happy. I have always preferred recipes where meat ranges from condiment to harmony singer; it’s rare that I crave a big steak. It happens, but maybe only twice a year.

I live alone. A single decent walleye can feed me for two meals. When I shot those three little deer a couple seasons back, it took me more than a year to eat the meat, even after giving a bunch to friends.

Outside of special events, like the culinary hunts I do in Oklahoma, I rarely cook for more than a few people, and even that’s uncommon. I do need a small stockpile for the next cookbook I am working on, but for the most part, I eat lightly.

And not gonna lie: I miss cooking for someone regularly. It’s one way I show love. On my own, there are many nights where I just don’t feel like cooking. So I go out, or eat cheese and Triscuits.

Then, when I work on recipes for Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, I find myself awash in whatever that recipe is, to the point I end up hate-eating the leftovers. I never really realized just how important my former partner Holly’s love of endless Hank leftovers was to the whole process…

This has to stop. But then what becomes of my hunting and fishing? What becomes of pursuits built for feeding many when I now cook mostly for one?

Hunting, fishing, and foraging are partly how I define myself. And while yes, the meals are vital to the entire process, so are the adventures and the camaraderie. Keen observers of this space may have already noticed that I am in the field far less than I was when I lived in Sacramento. This is why.

I need to find a way to be disciplined enough to eat what I bring home quickly, in a celebratory way, freezing little or none for winter. One of the reasons I have not ice fished at all this season is because I still have many pounds of fish frozen at home. I skipped a pheasant hunt in Kansas for the same reason. I wanted to do both, but that full freezer sneers at me in my head.

I don’t really have a good answer for this. But it is bothering me. A lot. Maybe the answer isn’t hunting and fishing less, but doing it with more intention — releasing more fish, stopping before I shoot a limit, and then bringing home only what the present version of my life can properly honor.