My Books

My most recent book is Forage, Harvest, Feast. It is available in bookstores, directly from Chelsea Green Publishing, and on Amazon. In my native South Africa you can order it from Loot.

Featuring 36 plants and almost 500 recipes, Forage, Harvest, Feast is a cookbook dedicated to the thorough exploration of 36-plus (I sneak some extras in) unusual botanical flavors. Its pages introduce cooks, farmers’ market shoppers, and gardeners to inspiring ingredients, and provide foragers with an arsenal of recipes for their seasonal bounty.

Many of the plants in Forage, Harvest, Feast can be foraged internationally (in cities, suburbs, and the rural wilds): Forgotten, neglected and unwanted plants often viewed as weeds are treated here as food, and occasionally as crops: amaranth, lamb’s quarters, white sweet clover, quickweed, purslane and cresses are given a place to shine. For plants like Japanese knotweed and burdock, that are very invasive, I advocate for mechanical control by the regular collection, consumption, and sale of their delicious edible parts in season.

Native American plants like bayberry, common milkweed, fiddleheads, prickly ash, ramps, spicebush, and sweetfern can – and often should, for reasons of sustainability – be grown at home, in community gardens, or on diversified farms. Forage, Harvest, Feast provides readers with cultivation tips to help them develop their own kitchen gardens using these indigenous spices that few Americans are familiar with.

The recipes in Forage, Harvest, Feast range from pantry basics like mugwort salt and field garlic butter, to preserves like lacto-fermented garlic mustard, field garlic pickles, and fermented serviceberries, to infusions and hooches like seasonal vermouth and black cherry rum, right through dozens of appetizers, entrées, desserts, and bakes. With snacks and cocktails to start, of course. All recipes are indexed for vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians and omnivores.

Dedicated to the art of 21st century foraging, informed by an awareness of the importance of biodiversity, and celebrating native as well as invasive flavors, Forage, Harvest, Feast was created to inspire readers for years to come.

My first book, 66 Square Feet - A Delicious Life,  offers monthly menus and recipes inspired by the year's 12 seasons, as I experienced them from the perspective of a rooftop gardener, forager and cook. It is available on Amazon, or you can order to it from your local bookstore.

It is "creative nonfiction, cut from the same cloth as great nature writing," writes Gabrielle Langholtz, former editor of Edible Manhattan and the forthcoming tome America: The Cookbook.

When I am not writing and reading and recipe testing and gardening (or washing the dishes), I am walking in the woods. To join me, sign up for a wild foods walk, or get in touch to arrange a private walk or class, or simply to be included on my mailing list.