RE: Steemit Iron Chef 2017 #08: Savory Pumpkin Custard on a Bed of Baby Wild Greens – with Black Nightshade and Spruce Tree Dressing – and Flowers!
I'd like to learn more about foraging! The only things I know how to take from the wild here in Minnesota are raspberries, dandelions and morels. when I lived in Missouri, we'd pick wild mâche (which has to be the best weed ever -- I plant it now!) and mulberries. I should find a local class or something!
Your dish is very pretty. Edible blossoms really do amp anything up! (It was too late in the season to find squash-blossoms, but that would have been great for this challenge.) I'm a savory pumpkin guy, I've never like e.g. pumpkin pie and I'm even a little leery of the nutmeg you used -- the traditional pumpkin spice mix turns me off, but I like nutmeg in other contexts (like with cheese) so I'm not really dubious. I'd totally eat that. :)
Weird off-topic question: if you're over the coastal range, but still up in the hills does it rain in the summer? We've been thinking about moving to Oregon in maybe five years and I've been searching for ruralish property in roughly the triangle between Portland, Astoria, and Tillamook (or maybe further south) and trying to figure out the weather -- it'd be nice to avoid floods, droughts and heat waves, but maybe that's asking too much.
It sounds like you know some good foraging already -- raspberries, dandelions, and morels are a great combination! About the weather -- here in Oregon's Willamette Valley, we don't get much rain in the summer. It's a Mediterranean climate that's really wet in the winter and dry in the summer. Not even one inch total for July and August, most years. This year is was zero -- zilch -- in those months. It would be cooler and wetter in your triangle than in the Willamette Valley. Maybe not rain, but fog along the coast. The big shift that bothers most folks is the cloudiness of the fall, winter, and spring. It can be gray for a long time! Hope that helps -- and be sure to visit Oregon in the winter, not just the summer!