Supper in the woods and a new sheath

 The noise outside was driving me mad, and I was in desperate need for some green, so I packed my gear and my supper and made for a place in the woods behind my "home" sheltered from the noise of the highway, the plane traffic, the road and the railway station, the yelping, shrieking, yelling and crying of Ritalin-drugged kids and drunks waiting for the bus. Funny, how calm this wood actually is, even if the highway runs through it. I took a deep breath, poured myself a cuppa and took my snack board and one of my favourite knives. Had some leftover steak from BBQing and some real bread, and just relished in great food and tea and silence.

 In case you ask, the blade is 90 mm x 3mm of my own San- Mai damascus (60 layers of 1.2842 toolsteel and rebar with a cutting core of 1.2842, brass fittings, tang peened over amd a chunky, comfy stag antler handle. It´s one of my favourite snack and kitchen and carving knives. I had a sheath for it, which I had bought, but it did not fit too well, so I finally got to business the other day and made a sheath for it, nothing fancy, really, but tanned and tempered with dragon´s blood (daemonoropos draco) concoction, wet-formed and then hot-dragonblooded and beeswaxed;-).

 On my way home I got myself some spruce sprouts for schnapps,tea and syrup. I like to use it as a concoction against the flu and the like, the schnapps is also good for the digestion;-). To make the syrup you need:

3 handful of spruce sprouts
1 cup wood honey
1 natural lemon
sugar if you are so inclined, or more honey

Put one layer of spruce sprouts in a jar. Thoroughly wash the lemon. Make thin lemon slices and put them atop the spruce sprouts. Cover with honey. Add another layer of spruce, and lemon slices, cover with honey, and so forth. Add a thick layer of sugar to keep off the air. Put on the lid. Let it rest for a week in the sun. Pass through a sieve. Carefully heat the syrup to at least 75° Celcius and pour it in a vaccum lid, put the lid on and set it upside down for aan hour. Heat in a bain-marie again. Done;-).

Schnapps:

1 handful of spruce sprouts
1 cup wood honey
1 l Vodka

Cover the sprouts with honey, let it rest for a week. Cover with Vodka, let it rest for 6 weeks. Pass through a sieve. Nasdarowje!;-)


For tea, take 5-10 spruce sprouts, pour with 0,3 l of boiling water. Sweeten with honey if you feel so inclined. It´s also delicious with a twig of sage and hederacea glechoma.

I LOVE roast deer:-)

 On Chrismas Eve I visited my mother, for her friend was with his family and mummy wanted to spend some time with sonny;-). She had some deer meat handy and wanted to prepare it and wasn´t quite sure what to do with it:-). So I wrestled her for dominion over the dishes. After a fight of approximately half an hour (no worries, she will recover from her injuries soon:-)), I claimed dominion over the meat and prepared it my way... had some ideas, coincidentally*g. She had already soaked it in a concoction of red wine, juniper berries, laurel leaves, black pepper and honey. I then wrapped it with twine net and added some onion slices, some bacon slices, wild apple and spruce hips (harvested when young).

Heated the oven at 200 degrees Celsius. In a pot I gave it a turn in sizzling onion / apple lard until roasted sharply on the outside, hot but shortly. Then I turned down the heat on the oven to 50 degrees and put the meat on a bed of bacon, apple and onion slices into the oven. The lard I filled up with the wine marinade until sizzling no more and turned down the heat immediately. After half an hour I turned the heat up to 75 degrees and poured some marinade over it. Did that every half hour. It was some 3,5 hours in the oven, with the last 15 minutes at 120 degrees. In the last half hour, we prepared some potato dumpling and some red cabbage to go along with the meat. The cabbage was enriched with a shot of marinade and some  

nutmeg and cinnamon. We then sweated some meal in lard until brown and deglazed the sauce with the leftover marinade. Added some black pepper, crushed coarsely, nutmeg powder (a knifetip full), spruce hips, some fresh (dry) red wine, some bouillon and water. In the meantime the meat was done. We served with the bacon, onions, apples, red cabbage and dumplings, and did we have a feast? BOY DID we!! I do not want to brag, but I really, really enjoyed it. I was right grateful for the experience. I spared a thought for the deer which has given its life, and the other things provided for so richly, and I came to a strange notion again:-).

In everyday situation so often we eat without pausing to think about what we eat, let alone being grateful for the meal. It was a very laborious ;-) process making this meal, and it payed off. So often I tend to eat some fast - food. As a forager, I know that I have to respect what I harvest, but even that wears off sometimes. This meal, however, was an experience I will relish in for  a long time. And this was an aspect of Chrismas that taught me something again. So much to learn. So many great things in this life;-)...I will try to cook something more than just carbohydrates more frequently, or so I hope.