Many years ago, I was teaching at a local community college. A participant was asked, “would you take another course with this instructor?” She answered, “yes, if he continues to live.”
This image is from one of the first LEAF festivals, circa 1996. Can you believe next year will be my 20th year of teaching wild foods? Good thing I’ve been taking reishi. That’s what I’m holding, a.k.a., the “the mushroom of immortality.” It’s one of our first mushrooms in the spring…
A special offer
I will be leading all outings next season. All tour dates — Wednesdays and Saturdays, April to October — are open for enrollment. The price will be $75. Until Tuesday, we’re offering 25% off the first 75 tickets sold. That’s less than this past season’s price!
Do you really want to learn wild foods? You can’t do it in one outing. Stock up on gift certificates for you and your friends. Now is the time! For the discount code, see here. Offer ends Tuesday.
Take your pick
Can’t do Wednesdays or Saturdays? You can now schedule a tour on any day of the week for as little as $75. We’ll work on getting other people to join you. For details, see here.
The season opens with ramps and morels. For something really special, book a visit to my secret morel spot. Need lodging? We now have packages with Aloft and with The Wright Inn. Can’t wait till spring? I do indoor talks on half a dozen topics, show and smell, cooking demos, and more.
For more news and special offers, “Like” us on Facebook. We’ll be announcing our upcoming events at Camp Golden Valley (home of Defiant Whiskey), Kindred (Charlotte’s new forage-to-table restaurant), The Greenbrier, and Old Edwards Inn, one of the top three resorts in the country and one of the top 25 in the world (Travel+ Leisure).
Teach your children
Did you know that Asheville has one of the worst childhood hunger problems in the country? Wild food is a sustainable solution. We believe that all children should be able to feed themselves: that foraging should be taught as a basic skill.
This season, we were privileged to work with Asheville Middle School, Hall Fletcher Elementary, Evergreen Community Charter School, The Girl Scouts, and the YMCA. We’re getting more invitations than we can handle. Here’s how you can help — for free!
Our tours fund our youth program. To support our work, buy a gift certificate. Don’t have money to spare? Reviews help fill our tours. If you’ve been “out to eat” with us, give us a review. You don’t even have to write it: just call our dedicated Tastymonial™ hotline. We will type it up for you. That’s almost as easy as foraging. Please call 315-FORAGER today.
Get involved
We are lining up a small team of interns for next season. Opportunities include:
• assisting with tours
• harvesting and/or processing wild foods
• scouting out natural areas for tours
• hotel outreach: distributing brochures, making connections, etc.
Learn by doing: it’s the only way!
Looking back
I’m thankful for another busy season. This year, I spoke on 9/11 at The U.S. Botanic Garden (next to the Capitol building) on “Home/Land Security.” I took out The 2014 James Beard Best Chef of the Southeast, a Vice President of The American Heart Association, and the “Queen of Versailles.” We were featured in USA Today, Travel+Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, The Washington Post, Yahoo Travel, Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, and many other publications.
Thank you to all our guides this season: Abby, Marc, Sandi, Seth, and Josh. Thanks to Alyssa (three photos up) and Rebekah (offering us dogwood fruit) for keeping me sane (or something close). To Ryan for running the market. And thanks to all our assistants: Kenny, Rachel, Jennifer, Nick, Rosiland, Eileen, Verena, Stewart, and Julia. For photos of our recent outings, visit our Facebook page.
Out of the baskets of babes