In the latest episode of the Son of a Blitch Podcast, we delve into the world of wild game cooking with Danielle Prewett, and discuss her debut wildgame cookbook, "MeatEater's Wild + Whole: Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook"
Listeners are treated to a tantalizing array of seasonal recipes that pay homage to both the landscape and the animals. Danielle's cookbook features dishes that reflect her commitment to honoring and appreciating the bounties of successful hunts, the joys of gardening and foraging, and blending them with heartfelt and wholesome meals for the family kitchen.
Whether it's a comforting rabbit soup in winter or a vibrant balsamic grilled venison dish in summer, her recipes offer simple yet elegant meals that celebrate the magic of each season. This episode serves as an invitation to embrace a conscious lifestyle, where living and eating in harmony with nature is a rich and rewarding process.
Danielle Prewett’s journey into the world of wild game cooking is not just about recipes; it's about embracing a conscious lifestyle that honors nature and its bounty. Her cookbook serves as a guide for those looking to connect with their food sources holistically, offering inspiration to get outside and explore the seasons. As listeners, we are invited to savor the flavors of each season, support sustainable practices, and embark on a rewarding culinary adventure.
To order your copy of "MeatEater's Wild + Whole: Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook", visit:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709921/meateaters-wild--whole-by-danielle-prewett/
Check out Danielle's MeatEater page for more recipes and articles:
https://www.themeateater.com/people/danielle-prewett
To learn more about George Blitch, visit:
www.SonofaBlitch.com
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About MeatEater’s Wild + Whole
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Over 80 seasonal recipes for cooking with wild game and eating consciously, from one of MeatEater’s leading culinary voices.
“This is food that makes you feel good, both physically and emotionally. It’s food that’ll make you proud to sit down at your own table.”—Steve Rinella, author of The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook and The MeatEater Outdoor Cookbook
Wild + Whole founder Danielle Prewett believes that every meal should tell a story, and that sustainable eating starts by reawakening our connection to food and relying on the seasons and the inherent rhythms of nature to guide our choices. In her debut cookbook, Wild + Whole, she shares the personal journey that taught her to love hunting, fishing, foraging, and gardening, as well as her philosophy for cooking seasonally, eating consciously, and approaching food with curiosity, thoughtfulness, and intention. As a leading voice in the wild food community and a trusted resource on processing and cooking wild game, Prewett creates meals that celebrate the diversity of food. Wild + Whole contains more than 80 recipes, organized by season, including:
SPRING: Cheesy Fried Morels with Rustic Tomato Sauce, Perfect Pan-Roasted Turkey Breast with White Wine and Tarragon Sauce
SUMMER: Black Bean, Corn, and Tongue Empanadas with Cilantro-Lime Crema, Broiled Salmon with Miso-Peach Jam and Crispy Fried Rice
FALL: Mushroom-Rubbed Roast Venison au Jus, Chocolate-Porcini Pots de Creme with Hazelnut Whipped Cream
WINTER: Popovers with Roasted Bone Marrow and Celery Leaf Gremolata, BBQ Confit Goose with Grilled Cabbage Wedges
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a
Blitch podcast.
I am your host, george Blitch,and I'm really excited for you
guys to tune in to thisinterview that I just did with
Danielle Pruitt.
If you guys are not aware, sheis about to put out her very
first cookbook.
It is called Meat Eaters Wildand Whole Seasonal Recipes for
the Conscious Cook.
It's really great.
We talk all about it and howit's kind of divided up in four
(00:37):
different seasons and so it'snot just the things you can hunt
maybe during the spring, summer, fall or winter, but it's also
what's growing or what you mightbe able to grow in your garden
and how you can pair thesethings together.
This whole approach to Wild andWhole started as a blog that
she did, you know, years ago,and eventually it got her picked
up and brought out to PheasantsForever and their big annual
(01:01):
event and had her, you know,doing a cooking presentation
where she met Steve, rinella andYanni from Meat Eater, as well
as Doug Dern, a mutual friend ofours who was there, and kind of
they invited her into workingunder, you know, meat Eater Inc,
because it kind of went fromthe show to now being, you know,
a huge juggernaut in theoutdoor industry.
Right, there's so manydifferent things that are
(01:21):
underneath this umbrella.
They brought Danielle in andkind of she was the you know
cooking wild, wild foodcontributor, editor, content
creator, and you know there's alot of different.
You know hats that she's wornthere through, but that's
there's, you know.
Check out the show notes belowbecause I'll have links to those
A lot of the recipes she sharesthere.
But this book is absolutelyincredible.
(01:41):
I think you guys are going tothoroughly enjoy it.
We had a great time chattingabout it today.
Kind of give a little bit moreinsight into what was important
about her putting this booktogether in the way that she did
and really what it is that shehopes that the readers take away
from this, and I just think youguys are thoroughly going to
enjoy it.
Make sure you place your orders.
And again, that is Meat Eaters,wild and Whole Seasonal Recipes
(02:04):
for the Conscious Cook byDanielle Pruitt.
And you guys enjoy this podcast.
I think you're really going tolearn a lot from this and what
Danielle has to share, and Ihope you guys enjoy it.
Make sure you share it with afriend and thanks again for
tuning in.
Everybody Appreciate all thesupport, take care.
Hey Danielle, how are you doingtoday?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm great.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Doing great.
I'm super excited to chat withyou.
Your cookbook's about to dropWild and Whole Seasonal Recipes
for the Conscious Cook.
Congratulations on that.
I've read through it, love it.
I'm very excited to try outsome recipes my wife and I kind
of circled a few that we'regoing to check out.
So before we kind of get intochatting about that though I
(02:43):
really want to kind of pull outof my guests I'd like to
introduce them to the listeners.
As far as you know, if you cangive me some background on kind
of where you grew up, how yougot involved with your love for
the outdoors and cooking andhunting and you know, kind of,
we'll just thread that throughthere and, you know, eventually
start chatting about thecookbook a little more.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, You're in Texas based right, you're in East
Texas.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I'm just outside of Houston.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Okay, where outside of Houston?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
In Katy.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, so I just moved , I moved.
Well, I was in Houston.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know you asked me questions about me and now I'm
asking you All good, all good.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, so yeah, I'm Texas-based, born and raised in
Texas.
I'm from North Texas, WichitaFalls, which my husband gives me
a hard time.
He calls me an alcoholic, but Iam south of the Red River, um,
but my dad is from South Dakota.
(03:44):
He and his family, uh, had afarm, big farm, in South Dakota
and, um, that was kind of a bigpart of my life upbringing.
We'd travel there for theholidays to visit family.
He would, he would go huntingwith his buddies often and, um,
it was really the boys that wentout and I always stayed back
(04:05):
with my grandma and every likethat Thanksgiving we always had
pheasant, like fried pheasant.
We always did a big chicken frywith pheasant.
Um, and so like hunting was wasalways like there in my life.
But I was never really a hunter, um, until I went to college
met my life, but I was neverreally a hunter.
Until I went to college met myhusband.
(04:29):
You know just a classic story ofa college kid met at a bar.
I don't know why I'm tellingthat part.
I think it's because todaynobody meets that in person
anymore.
It's like it's sort of a funnything.
But he asked me out on a dateto the gun range and um.
So that was kind of our, ourfirst introduction and which was
(04:52):
fun, um, it was.
It was a fun day and I thoughtit was pretty adorable and that
the second date was a dinner athis house because he had just
shot a deer.
He was, he was sighting in arifle at the gun range and so
the second date was successfuldeer hunt came back and he was
really proud to serve mebackstrap um, which you know I
(05:14):
was just kind of like all right,whatever, um, but I I remember
the way like he just it was veryendearing, the way that he like
this was something that wasreally special because you know
he shot it and he was like youcan't buy this at a grocery
store and I really decided toshare it with you and I loved it
.
Um, and so that was kind of thesort of introduction to who he
(05:37):
was in his life and why huntingmattered to him.
And you know, over the years, aswe dated and eventually got
married, um he was doing, youknow he's just an avid
outdoorsman, he's he's a very,very he's a very salty guy now
he's very fishy, but he truly issort of um?
(05:59):
Um opportunistic hunter in thesense that wherever you live,
especially in a state like texas, he's all about taking
advantage of whateveropportunities are available near
you.
Um, which I'll get into later,um, but but he was always
(06:20):
bringing game home for me tocook and I was fascinated
because I loved food, I lovedcooking.
I actually went to school forfashion design, apparel design
and manufacturing Totallytotally different than what I'm
doing now.
But I didn't love it aftercollege and I kind of wanted to
like get into something new,something else.
(06:41):
And so he was cooking wassomething that I really wanted
to just pursue.
I wanted to go to culinaryschool after, after I just
graduated college and I was like, yeah, maybe I don't know, I
didn't want to work in therestaurant industry and life
just took a really hard detourwhenever we got a call from his
(07:06):
company he works in oil and gasto go to North Dakota and that's
sort of like where I like tosay the story for me with
hunting really began, becausethe opportunities there and the
lifestyle is was just sodifferent than anything I'd ever
known in Texas, I meandramatically different.
(07:28):
And so that's, I mean in Texas,I, I, I would go dove hunting
with him.
Yeah, I feel like that's justlike a part of our culture in
Texas, like dove hunting.
But dove hunting to me, I mean,it's definitely is not hunting,
but it's.
It's not quite as um in depth.
(07:49):
As you know, big game andupland hunting, um, it's a great
thing to do with your friendsand dust, dust, the blow the
dust off your gun, your shotgun.
But, um, it wasn't until Imoved to north dakota where
everything just like totallytook off and and so we got a
bird dog, and that was sort ofthe hook for me when wanting to
(08:12):
get out in the field was towatch my dog work, because I
think it's just fascinating tojust see a dog do whatever
they're born to do.
And so, she, she was greatgetting me out in the field and
I, I tagged the whole first yearhunting season.
I just brought a camera becausethat's just, I, just I was
perfectly content not having agun, I just wanted to be out
(08:35):
there.
And, um, finally, my husband'slike, well, you know, get a
hunting license, get a gun, andlet's take this to the next
level.
And so I did, and I remembershooting my first pheasant, um
was in the cattails.
Um, marina, flushed.
But she, marina, is my goldenretriever.
She's 13 now.
(08:57):
Oh, it's hard seeing a dog.
Your first bird dog, um, anyway,yeah, so she flushed my first
bird for me, um, right in frontof me, and and you know I shot
it and it fell in the cattails,which I thought we would never
find, and she brought it backand it was just a really perfect
(09:18):
little outing in the morning,um, and then I went home and and
I prepared it and it and at bythat point I'd been cooking game
for a handful of years, and soit was like cooking pheasant was
not new to me, especially sinceI grew up eating it, but this
was the first time I had eatenanything that I had shot.
(09:39):
And then, all of a sudden, Iremember like I had just sort of
this aha moment whereeverything fell into place and I
felt this unbelievable amountof gratitude for that bird and
not just for the bird, for thehabitat, for the place that I
was hunting, that it waspreserved by you know the state,
(09:59):
that it was taken care of, that, like there were just so many
things about like how that thatbird got to my table that I was
grateful for, and, um, that sortof really became the trigger
point where I said, like I wantto eat this way every time, like
I should feel this good abouteating meat every single time.
(10:23):
And I knew that the reason wasbecause I had that intimate
connection with the landscape,with the bird, and that's the
way I wanted to eat for the restof my life.
And here I am.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well, you know, you, you kind of talked about how you
started this passion project ofwild and whole and you were
doing a blog, but at first youweren't really telling a lot of
people about it.
You were just kind of goingthrough and doing this for
yourself, it seems.
And then was that, when youkind of started that, was there
an idea that you're like kind ofwanted to maybe make that shift
and transition?
Did you have kind of anapproach to how you wanted to
(10:57):
maybe make your own mark in thisoutdoor industry?
Or was that even a thought atthat point in time when you
launched that?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, I want to say this was like eight or 10 years
ago, I can't remember, when Ihad people telling me you should
start a blog.
And I didn't want to start ablog because at that point in
time blogs were like all therage and it was mostly people
talking about their cat.
For you know, forever and evertill you got to the recipe at
(11:24):
the end, and still today, now,people don't talk about their
cat.
For you know, forever and evertill you get to the recipe at
the end, and still today, now,people don't talk about the cat.
But now they tell youeverything you need to know
about, like, that ingredient,and it's super annoying.
But, um, so for that reason Ididn't want to tell anybody,
cause I was like, oh, I don'tknow what people will think
about it.
Um, I'm very hard on myself andI'm a perfectionist, and so I
(11:45):
wasn't like ready to show thisthing out in the world, because
I felt like I needed time todevelop a brand that I was
really proud of.
So on one hand, it was sort ofa hobby, because I wanted to
play around with foodphotography I just I needed that
creative outlet and on theother hand, it was knowing that
(12:07):
there was something missing inof burgers and poppers and not
much else and and it was reallytailored to to like this very
(12:33):
narrow field of like this isjust for the hunters and is very
male dominated.
And I saw we were, we had I hadmade a decision that I wanted
to hunt for all of our proteinand so to me, game was just just
a meat source.
It was the same as beef chickenpork.
(12:54):
It was just a different animal.
Like I didn't see it as likehunting and domestic, like I
didn't see it like that and Isaw this like bigger holistic
view of what food is.
And I think that's partlyshaped by the way I grew up.
We had an emu farm and so, likeas a child, like I was like all
(13:15):
animals were food unless theywere illegal.
Like all animals was food and Ididn't like have this like beef
chicken pork, likecompartmentalized brain, and I
wanted my blog to sort ofrepresent that in a holistic way
and showing that like theseanimals fit into your regular
(13:35):
weeknight meals just likeanything else.
They're no different.
However, now I kind of see thata lot of times some of these
animals are very difficult tohunt.
You may only get one Turkey ayear, one beautiful Mallard a
year.
And so I'm like that's when youreally want to celebrate that
animal, that like, what do youdo with it?
And so that's what that blogwas sort of born out of um, wild
(13:56):
and whole.
It wasn't just recipes for wildgame, but it was also everything
else on your plate.
Um, what, what are you pairingit with?
Because I had a firm convictionon connecting to my protein,
but I wanted the same foreverything else.
So you know it's been anevolution.
But today, you know I reallycare about.
(14:18):
You know, like flour.
You know where am I buying myflour from cooking oil salt
flour.
You know where am I buying myflour from cooking oil salt?
Um, now, not every.
I mean, I still go to HGV,don't get me wrong.
Like I still go and like buythat stuff, but but I'm
conscious of it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Sure, well, and you know we'll, we'll chat about
that too, and kind of yourseasonal approach to the
cookbook too, and how you'rekind of pairing a lot of things
that are fresh ingredients atthat time, whether it's in the
garden or whether it's foraging,um, but I, I think that that's
a really interesting uh way thatyou kind of put that cookbook
you know together and and againwe'll dive into that I kind of
wanted to thread one more needlethere and that was kind of how
(14:56):
you took another step forwardwith, uh, you know, kind of
eventually working with meateater.
But you know, you, you talkedabout the blog.
It got picked up and there's anarticle and then eventually
National Pheasant Fest on QuailClassic from Pheasants Forever
invited you out for doing apresentation at the Wild Game
(15:17):
cooking stage and in that youended up meeting with Steve
Rinella Yanni and our mutualfriend, friend Doug Duren, and
kind of had a conversation.
This was right when meat eaterwas about to make a big shift in
the meat eater Inc and kind ofthe things they were doing.
And at that point in time, uh,you know, they kind of brought
you in uh to do some work withthem and I kind of wanted you to
maybe just chat a little bitabout that experience and what
that looked like then and howlong you've been with them now.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah.
So, like I was saying, I keptit secret and I don't know how
it became not secret, other thanthe North Dakota Game and Fish
contacted me, wanted to do astory, and so they did that.
And then somebody fromPheasants Forever saw that story
and said, hey, we should haveher come out to to do to, to do
(16:01):
cooking demonstrations at thePheasant Fest, to do cooking
demonstrations at the pheasantfest.
And so I I had agreed to dothat.
And in the meantime, um, afriend, a cold call terry.
Um, she's in the hunting andfishing industry as well.
She was working with steve atzpz.
This is, yeah, this is the ppdays, um, and she's like, oh,
(16:22):
you should, you should meetdanielle.
She's there, you're going to beat the event together.
Steve was the keynote speakerthat year.
And so set up, um, just like alittle breakfast, uh, with Yanni
and Doug Duren and met him forthe first time, um, which was
pretty cool.
Um, at the time I I had toadmit I wasn't really familiar
(16:43):
with meat eaters, so I was justkind of like rolling in with
just a regular old breakfastwith somebody, which is probably
a good thing.
Otherwise today I think I wouldhave been intimidated to go out
for breakfast, so luckily Iwasn't very familiar with them
(17:04):
Anyway.
so yeah, and this was pre-MeatEater Inc.
I don't know if anybody hasfollowed our company for long
enough to know that we're toknow that it sort of became a
bigger umbrella and it grew toinvolve a lot of voices in the
(17:25):
hunting and fishing world, likeMark Kenyon, ryan Callahan.
So I joined Neat Eater when wewere just a handful of people in
a room with a whiteboard and itwas really fascinating to see
this company grow because we hadthe foundation and the core
(17:49):
ethics that have always been apart of Meat Eater and will
always stay a part of Meat Eater, no matter how big we've grown
or what we've done and all thethings we do, that core belief
of what of of nature, enrichingour lives and and protecting and
conservation.
It will always be there.
And so it's been fascinating.
(18:10):
Now I've been there over sixyears, I think.
Um, I've been there a while.
It's crazy.
So it's it's been a wildjourney to to just kind of be a
part of this company and tocontinue to grow.
And it's weird because when Istarted, like, I wanted to
(18:31):
create recipes and developrecipes, I wanted to be in the
food industry.
I have no intentions of beinglike a social media person still
don't.
Still, I mean, it's totally apart of my job in my life.
But like I could have, I wouldhave never, like like, picked
(18:52):
this route if I had to.
It's just kind of the way thenature goes, but um, but yeah
it's.
You know, everything's changedover the years and so it's been.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's been cool to watch it grow Well and you know
I've kind of followed thatjourney for a while.
I know you've done a lot ofwork, a lot of different people,
and it kind of while in wholehas been developing over the
years.
Um, you know you're doing a lotof content creation.
Obviously you're a big part ofproducing and getting out and
editing all sorts of differentamazing recipes.
And you know it was just, Ifeel like inevitable that at
(19:22):
some point in time you'd have acookbook.
But I was kind of curious whenthat first took shape in your
mind.
Like that you decided you knowwhat I want to do this and how
did that look like?
Cause I mean, it takes a longtime to put together books and
yet alone cookbooks where you'retrying out which recipes are
going to make it, cause I'm sureyou have a big basket to choose
from and then you have 272pages that you're narrowing down
(19:43):
, plus you want to talk aboutyour stories, your introduction,
what's important to you.
So I was kind of curious whatthat looked like, how long of a
process was that?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
And, um, yeah, just kind of what was that?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
like for you.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Um, I was approached by some publishers about four
years ago and at that time therewere some small publishing
houses and I was like I don'tknow, cookbooks are really big
deal to me.
I want to put my heart and soulinto it.
These weren't really thepublishers I wanted to go for
(20:13):
and I had gotten enoughpublishers that we said, hey,
let's go ahead and get an agentand people are interested in the
idea of a wild and wholecookbook.
Let's put together a proposaland send it out to the
publishers.
So I spent like probably eightmonths developing a proposal and
(20:33):
so, for anybody unfamiliar, theproposal is basically like your
, you know, you got a wholecookbook, that's say two 300
pages.
The proposal is just like a 30page document that gives you
just the snapshot view of like,what is this book about?
Why am I the one to write thisbook?
Like, why am I, why am Iauthority on wild game?
(20:55):
What are the recipes?
Like what?
What does this book look like?
What are the recipes?
What does this book look like?
And that was really hard to do,because Wild and Whole over the
years wasn't just about cookingand recipes anymore.
I wanted it to be more of alifestyle cookbook that inspired
(21:17):
people to get outside I got abig reason why I wanted to start
hunting was to be able to eatmore sustainably, and the longer
that I hunt, the more I realizewhat that actually means and
what it means to eat consciouslyand to think about all the
factors the way agricultureplays a big role in the wildlife
(21:39):
, and then why it matters thatwe should care about the
sustainability of our foodsystem, how food production
works, because it very muchaffects our wildlife.
If you look at statistics onlike how much of the grasslands
we've lost just habitat ingeneral, you can see like farms
that are regenerative andincreasing biodiversity, our
(22:04):
wildlife gets better.
So as a hunter, I wanted totell the story of why the food
choices you make matter, and Ithink it's in a world where you
hear a lot about foodsustainability from anti-meat
eaters to like the othercarnivore aspect, no one has
really told that from theperspective of a hunter who
(22:25):
cares about the conservation ofwildlife and habitats as a whole
, and not just what's our carbonfootprint, you know it's a
bigger picture of thebiodiversity.
So as I started working on thiscookbook, it just like it
really became this journey ofwriting the story of like how to
(22:49):
eat consciously.
For me, and when I really startto piece that together, I
realized that eating through theseasons was, was very important
, not just from a perspective oflike.
Eating seasonally means thatyou're eating locally, so you're
supporting, like, local farmersif you go to a farmer's market
or anything, or if you garden,but in the wildlife, like every,
(23:11):
you know, I hunt and fish yearround and I love to forage, and
so every season there wassomething to get very excited
about and I think most people,when you open a cookbook, they
say, okay, I've got beef.
Or or say or say, if you'respecifically thinking of wild
game, you're like okay, I havean elk steak.
Let me go to the big gamechapter, and here's the steak
(23:34):
recipe I wanted to see.
I wanted to show it a littlebit differently in terms of what
time of the year is it?
What are you most excited about?
When you think about the spring, you're thinking about turkeys,
you're thinking in Texas.
For me it's dewberries on thevine.
Like it's all those fun thingsto get excited.
(23:54):
The white bass run Like there'sa lot of different things to
get super excited about in anygiven time of the year, and so
when you look at things fromthat perspective, you're more
bound to get outside and be innature, which is what I wanted
this book to be about.
Like get outside and getexcited about getting your food.
And so it took me about eightmonths to write the proposal and
(24:18):
we sent it off to publishersand I had a handful of people
interested.
Four out of the big fivepublishing companies wanted to
publish my book, and what theydo is you go to like an auction.
I met with all of them and theyall wanted to publish, and
Penguin Random House kind ofswooped me up from under the
table, and so after after that,I spent a little over a year
(24:47):
writing the actual book, becauseI wanted the headnotes to tell
a story.
Um, I always say there's a storybehind every meal if you're
willing to look for it, and so Iwanted that book to be filled
with those stories, and so Ispent the whole year going
through the seasons telling thestories of everything that you
know, like the you see, like apicture of like a mule deer I
(25:07):
shot in Montana.
All the venison recipes arethat mule deer and so, like you
kind of piece that kind of stufftogether.
Um and so, yeah, I spent a longtime and then it was supposed
to release last year but we werestill in the midst of like the
effects of COVID and the supplychain issues, and so there was a
(25:28):
paper shortage and I had tobasically get pushed, pushed
back a whole year on publication.
So this book has been in themaking for, yeah, a good three
years or more.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Oh, wow, and so that's quite a journey.
I didn't realize about thepaper shortage too, but I'm sure
that that affected a lot ofpeople in the midst of writing
and so hit the pause button.
There there's some amazingobviously amazing dishes, great
recipes, but I also reallyenjoyed a lot of the photography
.
And you worked with AngieMosier and I was curious how did
(26:03):
you guys end up, you know,working together, is it somebody
you knew ahead of time?
You know how did, becausethat's a big thing.
I mean, I've chatted a lot withother you know wild game chefs,
you know Jesse Griffiths,mutual friend, and you know
choosing what photographer towork with is a big deal and I
was just kind of curious howthat came about, how y'all did
shooting.
Was this something where theycame to your house, or did you
guys go to a kitchen whereyou're preparing and had
(26:23):
everything?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
kind of lit up.
That's a great question.
There was one a big, a bigdebate on how we were going to
shoot this, because I wantedmorels, I wanted chanterelles, I
wanted to like and you can'thave one cookbook shoot and have
a bunch of seasonal ingredients.
It was so challenging.
So Angie Mosier was a goodfriend of Kevin Gillespie's, who
(26:45):
used to be with me at Eater,and I'm still friends with Kevin
, and she shot a ton ofcookbooks and so we decided to
go with her and she's very, verytalented.
And the biggest challenge wasfiguring out when we were going
to do the shoot.
And we decided to do two shoots.
(27:06):
So one was in the summer thatwould photograph spring and
summer, and then the other was,um, like in january for the fall
and the winter chapters.
So so yeah, it was hard to toto figure out how to how to
shoot it, because I had to, Ihad to pick my favorite things,
(27:26):
basically like if I did it inthe spring I'm going to miss out
on the beautiful heirloomtomatoes.
So, and I actually did the firstshoot in Atlanta and I like the
tomatoes in my garden werepopping and I had just green
zebras and black crim and likeeverything, and so I I boxed
(27:47):
them all up and like, patted itand kept.
I didn't want to close the boxbecause they needed debris, so I
kept the box open and put it ina carry-on bag like it was like
totally ridiculous carry-on bagof boxed tomatoes and like all
all this stuff from my gardenand flew with it to Atlanta for
the cookbook shoot, um, and thensome of the photos actually a
(28:09):
handful of photos I I did myself, um, most of a lot of the ones
in the field, especially likebird hunting, um, some of the
food photography I did myself,um, and a lot of the just
moments in the field were weremy photos yeah, well, there's
some amazing shots in there.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
um, and one of the things that I I was kind of
taken back by as well was thatthis is not only just wild game
and some things that are likeyou know, know, obviously,
things you can forage or in yourgarden, I mean.
I usually think about mealsthat are, you know, kind of
protein based there too.
There's also some desserts inthere as well, for those to you
(28:50):
know, have that final bite.
Some amazing things there youhave, like sweet corn ice cream
chai spice parsnip cake withcream cheese frosting.
There are some amazing dishes,which is just cool because
there's not.
I haven't seen a lot of dessertstuff in Wild Game associated
cookbooks, so I thought that waskind of a fun, you know kind of
.
You got your appetizer typething, main meal, and you know
there's a lot of diversity there.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
This book is not just Wild Game recipes.
That's a good thing to bring upthe desserts like I like, I
love like a duck fat chocolatechip cookie and you know, do
there's a dewberry dessert.
I wanted to sort of incorporateother ingredients that I
frequently cook with, because inreal life I don't just cook
(29:33):
with wild game only, and I alsoincluded domestic animals for
that reason that I was sayingbefore that I think agriculture
plays a really important part ofour wildlife and for a long
time I only ate wild game as ourprotein.
And it wasn't until I startedthis book that I realized that
it was really important tosupport farmers who shared the
(29:56):
same common goal that I did.
And so I introduced and I metwith uh Will Harris at White Oak
Pastures in Georgia, and and sofor me it was like the first
time in 10 years that I hadcooked like beef, chicken or
pork, and I had like a reallyweirdly difficult time doing so.
(30:17):
Like I felt like I had made thislike moral pact with myself
that I only wanted to eat ananimal in which I had, like we
had intimate like connection tolike through hunting, but so
like I had a hard time justgoing to buy meat, um, and so it
took me some time to like itsounds really silly, but it took
(30:42):
me a little time to kind of getused to that idea.
But it really came from thefact that, like, these small
farmers were really making animpact and I wanted my dollar to
support them and what they weredoing, and so that became
really important.
So you will find recipes likethere's a really great pork chop
recipe in there, there's onefor beef cheeks in the winter
(31:04):
chapter, so it's a very it.
And there's a vegetarians.
There's a vegetarian recipe inevery chapter because I like,
really love vegetables, like Icannot get enough vegetables.
It's not a popular thing Ishare a lot on on social media,
but yeah, it'll be the only wildgame cookbook with a vegetarian
recipe.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well, it's important.
I think it is.
You know, you kind of talk aboutthis idea like what we eat is
like what our food eats, right,and you're incorporating some of
that.
I know that when, you know, inthe spring I'm picking
dewberries and I'm trying tomake some type of you know
buttery glaze sauce toincorporate with my turkey, you
know, in the summertime if I'mgetting a squirrel and there's
(31:45):
maybe wild persimmons trying todo some type of or even cactus
fruit, like different thingsthat incorporate what's there in
that point in time and I thinkit's a fun thing to just kind of
tie in, but especially when itmight be the food that you know
are these animals are eating tooand sometimes just highlighting
those.
So I think that's a really funthing to see that and to think
about it like that.
And I kind of wanted to, youknow, you know you talked about
(32:08):
that excitement of the differenttypes of the season, because
obviously you have spring,summer, fall, winter and you
know if you can maybe kind ofexpand on that ideas and maybe
what are some of those that, uh,you're most excited about in
each of those seasons that youkind of highlight here in your
book?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Um, gosh, that's a hard question.
I I should have my cookbook outnear me.
Um, I'll make a whole box of ahundred of them over there.
But, um, I'd say, in the springI have a recipe for a turkey
cutlet with asparagus and morels, and and I made them.
(32:44):
I made this like okay, theturkey cutlet is breaded and
fried, because I mean it's justgood, like right, like nobody
gets upset about a turkey cutlet, uh, but I wanted something to
like really acidic, to kind oflike just make it pop something
fresh.
Asparagus is in season in thespring and it's really it's got
a lot of lemons in it, and onething that I think is really
(33:06):
interesting is that morels andasparagus have really similar
earthy kind of quality to it.
And even though morels are verynotoriously difficult to find
in Texas, maybe if you're inNortheast Texas, middle East and
Dallas, you're probably morefrequently to find them.
But I tested this recipe withfresh morels and also dried
(33:28):
morels.
They both worked fantasticallyand that's a side dish that I
make all the time with venison,like in the spring with venison
steak on repeat.
And that's what I wanted tothis book to have those like
go-to recipes that are like aweeknight staple because it's
just, it's only it sounds fancybut it's only a handful of
(33:50):
ingredients that come togethervery fast.
Um, the summer, um, uh, we do alot of fishing here.
I live in rockport, texas now.
Um, we love to sightcastredfish and I talk a little bit
about about that in the book andthere's a recipe that's kind of
a riff on paul prudhomme's uh,blackened redfish and tell the
(34:12):
story if anybody's familiar with, like the, the red fish, the
red drum fishery going to thebrink of extinction, um, and the
height of of blackened redfishand restaurants, uh, because of
Paul Prudhomme in Louisiana.
Um, so I have a kind of a riffon that story, but it's a
Tex-Mex style.
(34:32):
Um, it's not seasoned withCreole, it's seasoned with, like
chili, ancho, cumin and oreganoand, um, it's on a bed of sweet
corn grits or, yeah, sweet corngrits.
So you basically take corn, yougrate it into grits as you're
making it, so it's it's a reallylovely pairing.
(34:54):
Uh, do you want me to gothrough every season?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
yeah, well, yeah, so we got fall game season bird
dogs, brown butter fall is ahard one to pick too, um, gosh,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So I'll say that my favorite fall dish is a venison
steak with sage and brown butter, and this goes back to kind of
what you were saying earlier oflike things that animals eat and
the habitat they live in pairwell together.
Stage brush is like my favoritenative plant that grows all the
(35:29):
way.
You know.
You find them quail hunting inSouth Texas all the way up into
Canada, and they're more in thearid climates you know of the
western part of the US, butthey're just really important to
the ecosystems and a lot ofthose animals browse on that
brush and so this recipe payshomage to that with garden sage
(35:54):
and it's just sage seasoned onthe steak and then you just
baste it with brown butter.
It couldn't be any easier andit's just those two combination
is just like quintessential falland brown butter.
I mean I just it's fall rightnow, so I mean I'm just like
drilling thinking about it.
(36:16):
And the winter, um, one of myfavorites is a very understated
recipe for rabbit and, um, someroot vegetables.
It's like it's just such asimple hearty soup with um,
primarily potato, but I useturnips a lot because I think a
(36:37):
lot of people don't think aboutcooking with turnips and you can
treat it just like a potato,but it's.
But it's got a lot of leeks init and some cream.
It's just a really nice, hearty, comforting soup.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And that's the rabbit leek and root vegetable dish.
That is incredible and I knowyou talked to a little bit about
some squirrel inclusion incertain things and I know you
talked about you had like gardenrevenge squirrels, right, they
take out some of the stuff thatyou guys grow and so you got to
throw those in and there's someinterchangeability in different
things that you kind of talkabout too.
(37:11):
But that that definitely was aa a quite an interesting dish.
I highlighted that one as well.
I know we know what I was.
Actually my wife had sent me aMeg.
She sent me.
It was a video you did recentlyand I think you called it the
summer on a plate.
Now I know that's not in thebook here, but it was a balsamic
grilled venison and heirloomtomato with I think it was like
a miso honey in there.
(37:32):
Can you tell me a little bitabout that dish, because that's
one that we've circled as?
We're definitely going to betrying that one out.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
So tomatoes, we can grow themfor a huge part of the year here
in Texas, and so I like pairingthem with venison steak in the
summer or any of the hottertimes of the month, like right
now, even though it's fall, it'sstill like summer food to me.
It's fall everywhere else, butso yeah, so I make a balsamic
(38:00):
reduction and you can buy thatalready made like a balsamic
glaze.
But it's very easy to do.
You basically just takebalsamic vinegar and reduce it
on the soap top.
I don't add any sugar.
It actually naturally hasenough sugar that you can get it
down to a glaze, that recipeyou were talking about.
(38:20):
I just add a little bit of misoto it to kind of give it this
like extra umami flair andflavor, because it's the recipe
itself is sort of um, inspiredby oh gosh there, what's the
name of that restaurant on theriver and green oh um, they do
(38:45):
their famous balsamic grilledsteak, and so that's kind of
what it what the riff is.
And so I basically make thatbalsamic glaze, put it on the
grill like I sear it, season it,sear it, baste it with that
glaze and keep, keep, um, keepon, like flipping it on the
grill until that glaze sort ofcaramelizes a little bit, um,
(39:05):
and then you pair it with yourtomatoes and a little extra
glaze, and then I um have somereally good olive oil with some
toasted garlic, and it's inbasil.
It's like a caprese steak,caprese salad with steak.
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Nice.
Well, you know, moving back tothe cookbook, at the tail end of
the cookbook, after you've kindof gone through the seasonal
dishes, and you have a sectiontwo about things better homemade
, where you got mayo, pickles,sausages, rub, seasoning stocks,
and I think that's a definitehighlight that people need to
check out because there's a lotof things you can make on your
(39:43):
own.
You just might need to go goodand give it a little try and and
kind of experiment a bit.
Um, and one of the things thatyou know, it struck me there was
a post that you talked aboutthis might've been about a year
ago, even though you're talkingabout when you're making stocks
and that you roast a lot of thethings before you, you know,
make a stock.
Now, I've always kind of justtaken, you know, if I have, uh,
(40:03):
you know, some leftovers, bonesand carcass, whatever, something
I kind of throw in the waterand I'm making my own stock.
But it had never occurred to me, or I just didn't know about
the idea of roasting it and Iwas kind of curious about what
that changes for you, how thatmight enhance flavors, what was
it that you know?
How is that beneficial forthose who are making their own
stocks?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
So think of it like cooking meat, say.
You've got a recipe and almostevery recipe involving meat
involves searing, sauteing orfrying, grilling, high heat the
meat first, like if you're goingto make a stew, you're going to
(40:45):
sear that meat and then you addall those liquids, because
searing that is what you'redoing.
They call it's called the meyerreaction, where the proteins
and the sugars in that heat theysort of caramelize into this
like really meaty flavor.
That makes it's the thing thatmakes you drool and it's, they
say, like it's an, it's anevolutionary thing.
(41:09):
That uh, happens like that'show we used to know that food
was safe to eat is whenever yousmell that and and you get
hungry, um, so that's like whatyou're doing first.
It's the exact same thing withstock.
It's the same application.
You're roasting those bonesbecause you're trying to create
(41:30):
sort of those meaty brownflavors that sort of make that
dish more savory.
It adds more savoriness to it.
So it's the same thing.
Roasting is just an easy way.
You can't really sear yourbones because of the shape of it
, so it's the same thing.
Roasting is just an easy way.
You can't really see your bonesbecause of the shape of it, so
it's easier to just coat it.
Depending on what it is.
Like venison, you can coat itwith a little tomato paste and
(41:52):
then roast it, and that tomatopaste just sort of adds even
more rich flavors to it Birds.
I don't like to add tomatopaste.
I think some people like it.
I think it makes it a littletoo rich and a little too heavy.
I want it to be a little bit onthe lighter side, but I still
like to roast it and then youthrow that in the pot with your
(42:14):
veggies in the water.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Right on and I wanted to also real quick mention the
book cover and I was curiouswhat dish is that and why did
that make the front cover?
Because I mean, the cover ofbook is always a very important
thing.
What was it about that one doesthat, you're like I want to do
that, or does the photograph andthat meal just turned out so
great?
You're like I think that's theone we're going to go with.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
curious about your approach on that I picked that
one out before we photographedthat.
I wanted that recipe to be thecover.
That recipe there's two roastedpheasants and the story on that
is when we lived in NorthDakota we had our tradition of
going pheasant hunting everymorning on Thanksgiving because
(42:55):
nobody else was in the field.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Great time Sure.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
By the way, if you're ever looking for like the best
time to go hunting on publicland, pick a holiday, christmas,
thanksgiving.
You got the place to yourself.
That's like my hot tip.
And so we used to do that and Iwould always.
When we came back home, I had apheasant already plucked and
ready to go throw it in the oven.
(43:20):
I had my sides prepped, so we'dgo hunting.
I'd come home, I'd shower,throw the it in the oven.
I had my sides prepped, so we'dgo hunting.
I'd come home, I'd shower,throw the birds in the oven and
we'd have our Thanksgiving thatafternoon or evening, just the
two of us.
And we did that for like fouryears, four or five years and it
was a really special memory forme and I wanted that to be on
the cover because the editorswanted something that like that
(43:44):
you could look at it and say,okay, that's wild game and and
so you know I was trying tothink about venison is a hard
one because it just looks likeyou know, red meat, um, and a
bird is is much more iconic andI think, more specifically,
you'll notice, the feet arestill attached and that really
(44:05):
bothers a lot of people, and Ithought my editors were just
going to say absolutely not,because some people are very
turned off, and for me, I thinka big part of what this book is
all about is getting outside,connecting to your food and like
the reminder that there was alife, there was an animal that
(44:26):
died for your meal.
We don't like to be reminded ofthat when we go to the grocery
store and buy something wrappedin plastic, and so I think, in a
way, that those feet reallysort of signify that notion of
of um knowing this animal, this,this animal's life, um that
that became your meal.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Well, and I I also like that.
It kind of ties back in thatfirst experience of you pheasant
hunting and cooking your firstmeal for yourself.
It feels like a full 360 to comeback around to that and I I
liked that it kind of nods tothat and obviously you tell that
story.
Um, you know, you, you talkabout in the book too.
There's like six ways to liveand eat more consciously, and
that was a very important thing.
(45:09):
Obviously, we've talked alittle bit about that and, um,
what are some of the otherthings that you kind of really
hope that settle in with, uh,your readers and that you hope
to be able to convey, uh aboutthe importance of you know while
game cooking, of eatingconsciously, of you know working
within your environment,whether it's you know foraging
or you know what you're going inthe garden.
(45:29):
What is it that you hope thatpeople can kind of take away
when they pick up this book?
And you know, go through that.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
You know, I think you really hit on all the key
points.
I the one thing that I I wantto caveat is that, while this
book is meant to be something ofan inspiration and a a glimpse
into, like, like, what mypersonal lifestyle is, this is
something that also took meyears to get to a point of of
(45:57):
living it.
None of it happened overnight.
I did not become a hunter andfisher 24-7, like year-round,
and a gardener and all thesethings overnight, and I think it
can be really overwhelming andvery expensive, very expensive,
to just say, hey, all my meat'sgoing to, I'm going to hunt for
all my meat.
(46:18):
It's going to all come from aCSA basket.
What I want people to understandis that you can embrace this
type of lifestyle without being100%, all in all or nothing.
You know you can take elementsof this that work and fit your
lifestyle, because it is verydifficult to hunt and fish year
round Like it's.
There's not very many peoplewho are able to do that and I
(46:41):
feel extremely fortunate to tobe able to have that opportunity
and I think, to be able to, youknow, say I'm putting this
amount of money to the side andthat's my CSA basket.
It's a hard thing to do and Idon't expect people to to be
able to do it all the time, butwhat I want is to be able to do
(47:02):
it all the time, but what I wantis to be able to feel inspired,
to take and find something, apart of that that works for
their life.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Well, I think you've done an amazing job with it.
It's a phenomenal book.
I'm very excited, everyone.
It comes out October 8th,wherever books are sold.
I know that there's a placethat people can, you know,
pre-order, you knowbarnesandnoblemeat,
demeateatercom, and you know,for those who want to follow you
a little bit more and kind ofsee you know, as this, you know,
continues to evolve and youknow the dishes that you have to
(47:32):
share and you work with Meteor,where can people go ahead and
follow you on your socials andyou know websites there.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, I'm on the main social channels Instagram,
facebook, even TikTok, althoughI'm not very active on TikTok.
Danielle Pruitt is my handle,just my name, so I'm pretty easy
to find.
And then you can find a lot ofstuff that I do for Meat Eater
on our YouTube channel, yepchannel.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yep, and then also, if you go to the mediacom and
you search your name there too,there will be a list of a ton of
different articles anddifferent recipes there too.
So I highly suggest people goand check that out as well.
You know, a question that I aska lot of my you know guests and
I was curious to get your takeis one about legacy.
(48:19):
You know, what is it that youhope to be able to leave behind?
Obviously, you're involved indoing some amazing work in and
of yourself and then workingwith, you know, the meat eater
and all those that fall underthe umbrella.
I mean, it's obviously ajuggernaut of individuals that
are really helping.
You know education,entertaining.
You know conservation, all thedifferent things that are kind
(48:42):
of underneath that.
But I was kind of curious whatit is that you kind of hope that
you can.
You know conservation, all thedifferent things that are kind
of underneath that but I waskind of curious what it is that
you kind of hope that you can,you know, leave your mark by
leaving, you know, behind someof these things.
What is it you think aboutlegacy at all?
Obviously, you know, being anew parent too is, you know, as
far as in a personal setting,what is it that you know, you
hope to?
You know, kind of be an examplefor, for, uh, you know your
kiddo and I know it's a bigquestion you can kind of tackle
(49:03):
it however you want.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
You know I mean food is.
Food is great, right, like,recipes are wonderful.
I I really like to cook ordevelop recipes for the home
cook.
I'm not here to be a Michelinstar chef or work at a
restaurant.
I'm here to to help people ummake the best of the food that
(49:25):
they hunt or forage.
Um, that's what the recipes aretailored to do.
But as far as legacy and nowthat I have a kid, you know I'm
looking out my back window Um,we just bought like a little
three acres um in Rockport andit backs up to a bird sanctuary,
(49:45):
and one of the things I'm mostexcited about is getting to
share with my son the excitementof just watching birds.
Like I wanted to know thedifference of hunting birds and
appreciating wildlife withouthaving to shoot them.
(50:08):
I want them to understand whatconservation means Um, and I
want to like how hunting tiesinto that Um, but but the idea
of just being able to sit backthere and watch migration come
in and and have thatappreciation and know that you
can enjoy this, this beautifulsanctuary.
There's a, there's an alligatorout there, um, I had, you know,
(50:32):
all the native plants.
Like I wanted to find thatappreciation for, for this
little piece that we have,that's that's been left alone
and untouched and we get towatch it and I and know the
difference between that and notneeding to kill everything.
But we're also going to takehunting and that's going to be a
big deal.
But, um, I think so when I thinkof legacy, I think of cons,
(50:56):
truly, I think of conservationand I think of of what we have
to leave for the future behind,for for the future is all going
to be rooted in how we take careof the things.
Today, I'm very, very intoplanting native species of
plants and preserving nativehabitats, which is it sounds
(51:19):
strange.
You know I'm a recipe developer, I wrote a cookbook but truly,
at the heart of everything I do,it's all about the preservation
of, of our wildlife and ourresources, and so that's kind of
the legacy that I want to passis to pass that enthusiasm and
love for, for the land.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Well said.
Well, danielle, I reallyappreciate you joining me today.
I'm really excited for yourbook to hit the shelves.
I think everyone's going tolove it.
Uh, it's phenomenal.
Um, once again, you know, wetold you everyone where you can
kind of pick it up.
I will have some links in theshow notes below.
That is wild and whole seasonalrecipes for the conscious cook
comes out October 8th.
Make sure you guys go ahead andmake your pre-orders, order
(52:02):
them and uh, yes, once again, Ireally appreciate it and all the
best to you and uh, hope youhave a great hunting season.
It's upon us, right?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
All right, you're welcome.
We'll talk soon.
You take care Thanks.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a
Blitch podcast.
I am your host, george Blitch,and I'm really excited for you
guys to tune in to thisinterview that I just did with
Danielle Pruitt.
If you guys are not aware, sheis about to put out her very
first cookbook.
It is called Meat Eaters Wildand Whole Seasonal Recipes for
the Conscious Cook.
It's really great.
We talk all about it and howit's kind of divided up in four
(00:37):
different seasons and so it'snot just the things you can hunt
maybe during the spring, summer, fall or winter, but it's also
what's growing or what you mightbe able to grow in your garden
and how you can pair thesethings together.
This whole approach to Wild andWhole started as a blog that
she did, you know, years ago,and eventually it got her picked
up and brought out to PheasantsForever and their big annual
(01:01):
event and had her, you know,doing a cooking presentation
where she met Steve, rinella andYanni from Meat Eater, as well
as Doug Dern, a mutual friend ofours who was there, and kind of
they invited her into workingunder, you know, meat Eater Inc,
because it kind of went fromthe show to now being, you know,
a huge juggernaut in theoutdoor industry.
Right, there's so manydifferent things that are
(01:21):
underneath this umbrella.
They brought Danielle in andkind of she was the you know
cooking wild, wild foodcontributor, editor, content
creator, and you know there's alot of different.
You know hats that she's wornthere through, but that's
there's, you know.
Check out the show notes belowbecause I'll have links to those
A lot of the recipes she sharesthere.
But this book is absolutelyincredible.
(01:41):
I think you guys are going tothoroughly enjoy it.
We had a great time chattingabout it today.
Kind of give a little bit moreinsight into what was important
about her putting this booktogether in the way that she did
and really what it is that shehopes that the readers take away
from this, and I just think youguys are thoroughly going to
enjoy it.
Make sure you place your orders.
And again, that is Meat Eaters,wild and Whole Seasonal Recipes
(02:04):
for the Conscious Cook byDanielle Pruitt.
And you guys enjoy this podcast.
I think you're really going tolearn a lot from this and what
Danielle has to share, and Ihope you guys enjoy it.
Make sure you share it with afriend and thanks again for
tuning in.
Everybody Appreciate all thesupport, take care.
Hey Danielle, how are you doingtoday?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm great.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Doing great.
I'm super excited to chat withyou.
Your cookbook's about to dropWild and Whole Seasonal Recipes
for the Conscious Cook.
Congratulations on that.
I've read through it, love it.
I'm very excited to try outsome recipes my wife and I kind
of circled a few that we'regoing to check out.
So before we kind of get intochatting about that though I
(02:43):
really want to kind of pull outof my guests I'd like to
introduce them to the listeners.
As far as you know, if you cangive me some background on kind
of where you grew up, how yougot involved with your love for
the outdoors and cooking andhunting and you know, kind of,
we'll just thread that throughthere and, you know, eventually
start chatting about thecookbook a little more.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, You're in Texas based right, you're in East
Texas.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I'm just outside of Houston.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Okay, where outside of Houston?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
In Katy.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, so I just moved , I moved.
Well, I was in Houston.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know you asked me questions about me and now I'm
asking you All good, all good.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, so yeah, I'm Texas-based, born and raised in
Texas.
I'm from North Texas, WichitaFalls, which my husband gives me
a hard time.
He calls me an alcoholic, but Iam south of the Red River, um,
but my dad is from South Dakota.
(03:44):
He and his family, uh, had afarm, big farm, in South Dakota
and, um, that was kind of a bigpart of my life upbringing.
We'd travel there for theholidays to visit family.
He would, he would go huntingwith his buddies often and, um,
it was really the boys that wentout and I always stayed back
(04:05):
with my grandma and every likethat Thanksgiving we always had
pheasant, like fried pheasant.
We always did a big chicken frywith pheasant.
Um, and so like hunting was wasalways like there in my life.
But I was never really a hunter, um, until I went to college
met my life, but I was neverreally a hunter.
Until I went to college met myhusband.
(04:29):
You know just a classic story ofa college kid met at a bar.
I don't know why I'm tellingthat part.
I think it's because todaynobody meets that in person
anymore.
It's like it's sort of a funnything.
But he asked me out on a dateto the gun range and um.
So that was kind of our, ourfirst introduction and which was
(04:52):
fun, um, it was.
It was a fun day and I thoughtit was pretty adorable and that
the second date was a dinner athis house because he had just
shot a deer.
He was, he was sighting in arifle at the gun range and so
the second date was successfuldeer hunt came back and he was
really proud to serve mebackstrap um, which you know I
(05:14):
was just kind of like all right,whatever, um, but I I remember
the way like he just it was veryendearing, the way that he like
this was something that wasreally special because you know
he shot it and he was like youcan't buy this at a grocery
store and I really decided toshare it with you and I loved it
.
Um, and so that was kind of thesort of introduction to who he
(05:37):
was in his life and why huntingmattered to him.
And you know, over the years, aswe dated and eventually got
married, um he was doing, youknow he's just an avid
outdoorsman, he's he's a very,very he's a very salty guy now
he's very fishy, but he truly issort of um?
(05:59):
Um opportunistic hunter in thesense that wherever you live,
especially in a state like texas, he's all about taking
advantage of whateveropportunities are available near
you.
Um, which I'll get into later,um, but but he was always
(06:20):
bringing game home for me tocook and I was fascinated
because I loved food, I lovedcooking.
I actually went to school forfashion design, apparel design
and manufacturing Totallytotally different than what I'm
doing now.
But I didn't love it aftercollege and I kind of wanted to
like get into something new,something else.
(06:41):
And so he was cooking wassomething that I really wanted
to just pursue.
I wanted to go to culinaryschool after, after I just
graduated college and I was like, yeah, maybe I don't know, I
didn't want to work in therestaurant industry and life
just took a really hard detourwhenever we got a call from his
(07:06):
company he works in oil and gasto go to North Dakota and that's
sort of like where I like tosay the story for me with
hunting really began, becausethe opportunities there and the
lifestyle is was just sodifferent than anything I'd ever
known in Texas, I meandramatically different.
(07:28):
And so that's, I mean in Texas,I, I, I would go dove hunting
with him.
Yeah, I feel like that's justlike a part of our culture in
Texas, like dove hunting.
But dove hunting to me, I mean,it's definitely is not hunting,
but it's.
It's not quite as um in depth.
(07:49):
As you know, big game andupland hunting, um, it's a great
thing to do with your friendsand dust, dust, the blow the
dust off your gun, your shotgun.
But, um, it wasn't until Imoved to north dakota where
everything just like totallytook off and and so we got a
bird dog, and that was sort ofthe hook for me when wanting to
(08:12):
get out in the field was towatch my dog work, because I
think it's just fascinating tojust see a dog do whatever
they're born to do.
And so, she, she was greatgetting me out in the field and
I, I tagged the whole first yearhunting season.
I just brought a camera becausethat's just, I, just I was
perfectly content not having agun, I just wanted to be out
(08:35):
there.
And, um, finally, my husband'slike, well, you know, get a
hunting license, get a gun, andlet's take this to the next
level.
And so I did, and I remembershooting my first pheasant, um
was in the cattails.
Um, marina, flushed.
But she, marina, is my goldenretriever.
She's 13 now.
(08:57):
Oh, it's hard seeing a dog.
Your first bird dog, um, anyway,yeah, so she flushed my first
bird for me, um, right in frontof me, and and you know I shot
it and it fell in the cattails,which I thought we would never
find, and she brought it backand it was just a really perfect
(09:18):
little outing in the morning,um, and then I went home and and
I prepared it and it and at bythat point I'd been cooking game
for a handful of years, and soit was like cooking pheasant was
not new to me, especially sinceI grew up eating it, but this
was the first time I had eatenanything that I had shot.
(09:39):
And then, all of a sudden, Iremember like I had just sort of
this aha moment whereeverything fell into place and I
felt this unbelievable amountof gratitude for that bird and
not just for the bird, for thehabitat, for the place that I
was hunting, that it waspreserved by you know the state,
(09:59):
that it was taken care of, that, like there were just so many
things about like how that thatbird got to my table that I was
grateful for, and, um, that sortof really became the trigger
point where I said, like I wantto eat this way every time, like
I should feel this good abouteating meat every single time.
(10:23):
And I knew that the reason wasbecause I had that intimate
connection with the landscape,with the bird, and that's the
way I wanted to eat for the restof my life.
And here I am.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well, you know, you, you kind of talked about how you
started this passion project ofwild and whole and you were
doing a blog, but at first youweren't really telling a lot of
people about it.
You were just kind of goingthrough and doing this for
yourself, it seems.
And then was that, when youkind of started that, was there
an idea that you're like kind ofwanted to maybe make that shift
and transition?
Did you have kind of anapproach to how you wanted to
(10:57):
maybe make your own mark in thisoutdoor industry?
Or was that even a thought atthat point in time when you
launched that?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, I want to say this was like eight or 10 years
ago, I can't remember, when Ihad people telling me you should
start a blog.
And I didn't want to start ablog because at that point in
time blogs were like all therage and it was mostly people
talking about their cat.
For you know, forever and evertill you got to the recipe at
(11:24):
the end, and still today, now,people don't talk about their
cat.
For you know, forever and evertill you get to the recipe at
the end, and still today, now,people don't talk about the cat.
But now they tell youeverything you need to know
about, like, that ingredient,and it's super annoying.
But, um, so for that reason Ididn't want to tell anybody,
cause I was like, oh, I don'tknow what people will think
about it.
Um, I'm very hard on myself andI'm a perfectionist, and so I
(11:45):
wasn't like ready to show thisthing out in the world, because
I felt like I needed time todevelop a brand that I was
really proud of.
So on one hand, it was sort ofa hobby, because I wanted to
play around with foodphotography I just I needed that
creative outlet and on theother hand, it was knowing that
(12:07):
there was something missing inof burgers and poppers and not
much else and and it was reallytailored to to like this very
(12:33):
narrow field of like this isjust for the hunters and is very
male dominated.
And I saw we were, we had I hadmade a decision that I wanted
to hunt for all of our proteinand so to me, game was just just
a meat source.
It was the same as beef chickenpork.
(12:54):
It was just a different animal.
Like I didn't see it as likehunting and domestic, like I
didn't see it like that and Isaw this like bigger holistic
view of what food is.
And I think that's partlyshaped by the way I grew up.
We had an emu farm and so, likeas a child, like I was like all
(13:15):
animals were food unless theywere illegal.
Like all animals was food and Ididn't like have this like beef
chicken pork, likecompartmentalized brain, and I
wanted my blog to sort ofrepresent that in a holistic way
and showing that like theseanimals fit into your regular
(13:35):
weeknight meals just likeanything else.
They're no different.
However, now I kind of see thata lot of times some of these
animals are very difficult tohunt.
You may only get one Turkey ayear, one beautiful Mallard a
year.
And so I'm like that's when youreally want to celebrate that
animal, that like, what do youdo with it?
And so that's what that blogwas sort of born out of um, wild
(13:56):
and whole.
It wasn't just recipes for wildgame, but it was also everything
else on your plate.
Um, what, what are you pairingit with?
Because I had a firm convictionon connecting to my protein,
but I wanted the same foreverything else.
So you know it's been anevolution.
But today, you know I reallycare about.
(14:18):
You know, like flour.
You know where am I buying myflour from cooking oil salt
flour.
You know where am I buying myflour from cooking oil salt?
Um, now, not every.
I mean, I still go to HGV,don't get me wrong.
Like I still go and like buythat stuff, but but I'm
conscious of it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Sure, well, and you know we'll, we'll chat about
that too, and kind of yourseasonal approach to the
cookbook too, and how you'rekind of pairing a lot of things
that are fresh ingredients atthat time, whether it's in the
garden or whether it's foraging,um, but I, I think that that's
a really interesting uh way thatyou kind of put that cookbook
you know together and and againwe'll dive into that I kind of
wanted to thread one more needlethere and that was kind of how
(14:56):
you took another step forwardwith, uh, you know, kind of
eventually working with meateater.
But you know, you, you talkedabout the blog.
It got picked up and there's anarticle and then eventually
National Pheasant Fest on QuailClassic from Pheasants Forever
invited you out for doing apresentation at the Wild Game
(15:17):
cooking stage and in that youended up meeting with Steve
Rinella Yanni and our mutualfriend, friend Doug Duren, and
kind of had a conversation.
This was right when meat eaterwas about to make a big shift in
the meat eater Inc and kind ofthe things they were doing.
And at that point in time, uh,you know, they kind of brought
you in uh to do some work withthem and I kind of wanted you to
maybe just chat a little bitabout that experience and what
that looked like then and howlong you've been with them now.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah.
So, like I was saying, I keptit secret and I don't know how
it became not secret, other thanthe North Dakota Game and Fish
contacted me, wanted to do astory, and so they did that.
And then somebody fromPheasants Forever saw that story
and said, hey, we should haveher come out to to do to, to do
(16:01):
cooking demonstrations at thePheasant Fest, to do cooking
demonstrations at the pheasantfest.
And so I I had agreed to dothat.
And in the meantime, um, afriend, a cold call terry.
Um, she's in the hunting andfishing industry as well.
She was working with steve atzpz.
This is, yeah, this is the ppdays, um, and she's like, oh,
(16:22):
you should, you should meetdanielle.
She's there, you're going to beat the event together.
Steve was the keynote speakerthat year.
And so set up, um, just like alittle breakfast, uh, with Yanni
and Doug Duren and met him forthe first time, um, which was
pretty cool.
Um, at the time I I had toadmit I wasn't really familiar
(16:43):
with meat eaters, so I was justkind of like rolling in with
just a regular old breakfastwith somebody, which is probably
a good thing.
Otherwise today I think I wouldhave been intimidated to go out
for breakfast, so luckily Iwasn't very familiar with them
(17:04):
Anyway.
so yeah, and this was pre-MeatEater Inc.
I don't know if anybody hasfollowed our company for long
enough to know that we're toknow that it sort of became a
bigger umbrella and it grew toinvolve a lot of voices in the
(17:25):
hunting and fishing world, likeMark Kenyon, ryan Callahan.
So I joined Neat Eater when wewere just a handful of people in
a room with a whiteboard and itwas really fascinating to see
this company grow because we hadthe foundation and the core
(17:49):
ethics that have always been apart of Meat Eater and will
always stay a part of Meat Eater, no matter how big we've grown
or what we've done and all thethings we do, that core belief
of what of of nature, enrichingour lives and and protecting and
conservation.
It will always be there.
And so it's been fascinating.
(18:10):
Now I've been there over sixyears, I think.
Um, I've been there a while.
It's crazy.
So it's it's been a wildjourney to to just kind of be a
part of this company and tocontinue to grow.
And it's weird because when Istarted, like, I wanted to
(18:31):
create recipes and developrecipes, I wanted to be in the
food industry.
I have no intentions of beinglike a social media person still
don't.
Still, I mean, it's totally apart of my job in my life.
But like I could have, I wouldhave never, like like, picked
(18:52):
this route if I had to.
It's just kind of the way thenature goes, but um, but yeah
it's.
You know, everything's changedover the years and so it's been.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's been cool to watch it grow Well and you know
I've kind of followed thatjourney for a while.
I know you've done a lot ofwork, a lot of different people,
and it kind of while in wholehas been developing over the
years.
Um, you know you're doing a lotof content creation.
Obviously you're a big part ofproducing and getting out and
editing all sorts of differentamazing recipes.
And you know it was just, Ifeel like inevitable that at
(19:22):
some point in time you'd have acookbook.
But I was kind of curious whenthat first took shape in your
mind.
Like that you decided you knowwhat I want to do this and how
did that look like?
Cause I mean, it takes a longtime to put together books and
yet alone cookbooks where you'retrying out which recipes are
going to make it, cause I'm sureyou have a big basket to choose
from and then you have 272pages that you're narrowing down
(19:43):
, plus you want to talk aboutyour stories, your introduction,
what's important to you.
So I was kind of curious whatthat looked like, how long of a
process was that?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
And, um, yeah, just kind of what was that?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
like for you.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Um, I was approached by some publishers about four
years ago and at that time therewere some small publishing
houses and I was like I don'tknow, cookbooks are really big
deal to me.
I want to put my heart and soulinto it.
These weren't really thepublishers I wanted to go for
(20:13):
and I had gotten enoughpublishers that we said, hey,
let's go ahead and get an agentand people are interested in the
idea of a wild and wholecookbook.
Let's put together a proposaland send it out to the
publishers.
So I spent like probably eightmonths developing a proposal and
(20:33):
so, for anybody unfamiliar, theproposal is basically like your
, you know, you got a wholecookbook, that's say two 300
pages.
The proposal is just like a 30page document that gives you
just the snapshot view of like,what is this book about?
Why am I the one to write thisbook?
Like, why am I, why am Iauthority on wild game?
(20:55):
What are the recipes?
Like what?
What does this book look like?
What are the recipes?
What does this book look like?
And that was really hard to do,because Wild and Whole over the
years wasn't just about cookingand recipes anymore.
I wanted it to be more of alifestyle cookbook that inspired
(21:17):
people to get outside I got abig reason why I wanted to start
hunting was to be able to eatmore sustainably, and the longer
that I hunt, the more I realizewhat that actually means and
what it means to eat consciouslyand to think about all the
factors the way agricultureplays a big role in the wildlife
(21:39):
, and then why it matters thatwe should care about the
sustainability of our foodsystem, how food production
works, because it very muchaffects our wildlife.
If you look at statistics onlike how much of the grasslands
we've lost just habitat ingeneral, you can see like farms
that are regenerative andincreasing biodiversity, our
(22:04):
wildlife gets better.
So as a hunter, I wanted totell the story of why the food
choices you make matter, and Ithink it's in a world where you
hear a lot about foodsustainability from anti-meat
eaters to like the othercarnivore aspect, no one has
really told that from theperspective of a hunter who
(22:25):
cares about the conservation ofwildlife and habitats as a whole
, and not just what's our carbonfootprint, you know it's a
bigger picture of thebiodiversity.
So as I started working on thiscookbook, it just like it
really became this journey ofwriting the story of like how to
(22:49):
eat consciously.
For me, and when I really startto piece that together, I
realized that eating through theseasons was, was very important
, not just from a perspective oflike.
Eating seasonally means thatyou're eating locally, so you're
supporting, like, local farmersif you go to a farmer's market
or anything, or if you garden,but in the wildlife, like every,
(23:11):
you know, I hunt and fish yearround and I love to forage, and
so every season there wassomething to get very excited
about and I think most people,when you open a cookbook, they
say, okay, I've got beef.
Or or say or say, if you'respecifically thinking of wild
game, you're like okay, I havean elk steak.
Let me go to the big gamechapter, and here's the steak
(23:34):
recipe I wanted to see.
I wanted to show it a littlebit differently in terms of what
time of the year is it?
What are you most excited about?
When you think about the spring, you're thinking about turkeys,
you're thinking in Texas.
For me it's dewberries on thevine.
Like it's all those fun thingsto get excited.
(23:54):
The white bass run Like there'sa lot of different things to
get super excited about in anygiven time of the year, and so
when you look at things fromthat perspective, you're more
bound to get outside and be innature, which is what I wanted
this book to be about.
Like get outside and getexcited about getting your food.
And so it took me about eightmonths to write the proposal and
(24:18):
we sent it off to publishersand I had a handful of people
interested.
Four out of the big fivepublishing companies wanted to
publish my book, and what theydo is you go to like an auction.
I met with all of them and theyall wanted to publish, and
Penguin Random House kind ofswooped me up from under the
table, and so after after that,I spent a little over a year
(24:47):
writing the actual book, becauseI wanted the headnotes to tell
a story.
Um, I always say there's a storybehind every meal if you're
willing to look for it, and so Iwanted that book to be filled
with those stories, and so Ispent the whole year going
through the seasons telling thestories of everything that you
know, like the you see, like apicture of like a mule deer I
(25:07):
shot in Montana.
All the venison recipes arethat mule deer and so, like you
kind of piece that kind of stufftogether.
Um and so, yeah, I spent a longtime and then it was supposed
to release last year but we werestill in the midst of like the
effects of COVID and the supplychain issues, and so there was a
(25:28):
paper shortage and I had tobasically get pushed, pushed
back a whole year on publication.
So this book has been in themaking for, yeah, a good three
years or more.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Oh, wow, and so that's quite a journey.
I didn't realize about thepaper shortage too, but I'm sure
that that affected a lot ofpeople in the midst of writing
and so hit the pause button.
There there's some amazingobviously amazing dishes, great
recipes, but I also reallyenjoyed a lot of the photography
.
And you worked with AngieMosier and I was curious how did
(26:03):
you guys end up, you know,working together, is it somebody
you knew ahead of time?
You know how did, becausethat's a big thing.
I mean, I've chatted a lot withother you know wild game chefs,
you know Jesse Griffiths,mutual friend, and you know
choosing what photographer towork with is a big deal and I
was just kind of curious howthat came about, how y'all did
shooting.
Was this something where theycame to your house, or did you
guys go to a kitchen whereyou're preparing and had
(26:23):
everything?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
kind of lit up.
That's a great question.
There was one a big, a bigdebate on how we were going to
shoot this, because I wantedmorels, I wanted chanterelles, I
wanted to like and you can'thave one cookbook shoot and have
a bunch of seasonal ingredients.
It was so challenging.
So Angie Mosier was a goodfriend of Kevin Gillespie's, who
(26:45):
used to be with me at Eater,and I'm still friends with Kevin
, and she shot a ton ofcookbooks and so we decided to
go with her and she's very, verytalented.
And the biggest challenge wasfiguring out when we were going
to do the shoot.
And we decided to do two shoots.
(27:06):
So one was in the summer thatwould photograph spring and
summer, and then the other was,um, like in january for the fall
and the winter chapters.
So so yeah, it was hard to toto figure out how to how to
shoot it, because I had to, Ihad to pick my favorite things,
(27:26):
basically like if I did it inthe spring I'm going to miss out
on the beautiful heirloomtomatoes.
So, and I actually did the firstshoot in Atlanta and I like the
tomatoes in my garden werepopping and I had just green
zebras and black crim and likeeverything, and so I I boxed
(27:47):
them all up and like, patted itand kept.
I didn't want to close the boxbecause they needed debris, so I
kept the box open and put it ina carry-on bag like it was like
totally ridiculous carry-on bagof boxed tomatoes and like all
all this stuff from my gardenand flew with it to Atlanta for
the cookbook shoot, um, and thensome of the photos actually a
(28:09):
handful of photos I I did myself, um, most of a lot of the ones
in the field, especially likebird hunting, um, some of the
food photography I did myself,um, and a lot of the just
moments in the field were weremy photos yeah, well, there's
some amazing shots in there.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
um, and one of the things that I I was kind of
taken back by as well was thatthis is not only just wild game
and some things that are likeyou know, know, obviously,
things you can forage or in yourgarden, I mean.
I usually think about mealsthat are, you know, kind of
protein based there too.
There's also some desserts inthere as well, for those to you
(28:50):
know, have that final bite.
Some amazing things there youhave, like sweet corn ice cream
chai spice parsnip cake withcream cheese frosting.
There are some amazing dishes,which is just cool because
there's not.
I haven't seen a lot of dessertstuff in Wild Game associated
cookbooks, so I thought that waskind of a fun, you know kind of
.
You got your appetizer typething, main meal, and you know
there's a lot of diversity there.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
This book is not just Wild Game recipes.
That's a good thing to bring upthe desserts like I like, I
love like a duck fat chocolatechip cookie and you know, do
there's a dewberry dessert.
I wanted to sort of incorporateother ingredients that I
frequently cook with, because inreal life I don't just cook
(29:33):
with wild game only, and I alsoincluded domestic animals for
that reason that I was sayingbefore that I think agriculture
plays a really important part ofour wildlife and for a long
time I only ate wild game as ourprotein.
And it wasn't until I startedthis book that I realized that
it was really important tosupport farmers who shared the
(29:56):
same common goal that I did.
And so I introduced and I metwith uh Will Harris at White Oak
Pastures in Georgia, and and sofor me it was like the first
time in 10 years that I hadcooked like beef, chicken or
pork, and I had like a reallyweirdly difficult time doing so.
(30:17):
Like I felt like I had made thislike moral pact with myself
that I only wanted to eat ananimal in which I had, like we
had intimate like connection tolike through hunting, but so
like I had a hard time justgoing to buy meat, um, and so it
took me some time to like itsounds really silly, but it took
(30:42):
me a little time to kind of getused to that idea.
But it really came from thefact that, like, these small
farmers were really making animpact and I wanted my dollar to
support them and what they weredoing, and so that became
really important.
So you will find recipes likethere's a really great pork chop
recipe in there, there's onefor beef cheeks in the winter
(31:04):
chapter, so it's a very it.
And there's a vegetarians.
There's a vegetarian recipe inevery chapter because I like,
really love vegetables, like Icannot get enough vegetables.
It's not a popular thing Ishare a lot on on social media,
but yeah, it'll be the only wildgame cookbook with a vegetarian
recipe.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well, it's important.
I think it is.
You know, you kind of talk aboutthis idea like what we eat is
like what our food eats, right,and you're incorporating some of
that.
I know that when, you know, inthe spring I'm picking
dewberries and I'm trying tomake some type of you know
buttery glaze sauce toincorporate with my turkey, you
know, in the summertime if I'mgetting a squirrel and there's
(31:45):
maybe wild persimmons trying todo some type of or even cactus
fruit, like different thingsthat incorporate what's there in
that point in time and I thinkit's a fun thing to just kind of
tie in, but especially when itmight be the food that you know
are these animals are eating tooand sometimes just highlighting
those.
So I think that's a really funthing to see that and to think
about it like that.
And I kind of wanted to, youknow, you know you talked about
(32:08):
that excitement of the differenttypes of the season, because
obviously you have spring,summer, fall, winter and you
know if you can maybe kind ofexpand on that ideas and maybe
what are some of those that, uh,you're most excited about in
each of those seasons that youkind of highlight here in your
book?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Um, gosh, that's a hard question.
I I should have my cookbook outnear me.
Um, I'll make a whole box of ahundred of them over there.
But, um, I'd say, in the springI have a recipe for a turkey
cutlet with asparagus and morels, and and I made them.
(32:44):
I made this like okay, theturkey cutlet is breaded and
fried, because I mean it's justgood, like right, like nobody
gets upset about a turkey cutlet, uh, but I wanted something to
like really acidic, to kind oflike just make it pop something
fresh.
Asparagus is in season in thespring and it's really it's got
a lot of lemons in it, and onething that I think is really
(33:06):
interesting is that morels andasparagus have really similar
earthy kind of quality to it.
And even though morels are verynotoriously difficult to find
in Texas, maybe if you're inNortheast Texas, middle East and
Dallas, you're probably morefrequently to find them.
But I tested this recipe withfresh morels and also dried
(33:28):
morels.
They both worked fantasticallyand that's a side dish that I
make all the time with venison,like in the spring with venison
steak on repeat.
And that's what I wanted tothis book to have those like
go-to recipes that are like aweeknight staple because it's
just, it's only it sounds fancybut it's only a handful of
(33:50):
ingredients that come togethervery fast.
Um, the summer, um, uh, we do alot of fishing here.
I live in rockport, texas now.
Um, we love to sightcastredfish and I talk a little bit
about about that in the book andthere's a recipe that's kind of
a riff on paul prudhomme's uh,blackened redfish and tell the
(34:12):
story if anybody's familiar with, like the, the red fish, the
red drum fishery going to thebrink of extinction, um, and the
height of of blackened redfishand restaurants, uh, because of
Paul Prudhomme in Louisiana.
Um, so I have a kind of a riffon that story, but it's a
Tex-Mex style.
(34:32):
Um, it's not seasoned withCreole, it's seasoned with, like
chili, ancho, cumin and oreganoand, um, it's on a bed of sweet
corn grits or, yeah, sweet corngrits.
So you basically take corn, yougrate it into grits as you're
making it, so it's it's a reallylovely pairing.
(34:54):
Uh, do you want me to gothrough every season?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
yeah, well, yeah, so we got fall game season bird
dogs, brown butter fall is ahard one to pick too, um, gosh,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So I'll say that my favorite fall dish is a venison
steak with sage and brown butter, and this goes back to kind of
what you were saying earlier oflike things that animals eat and
the habitat they live in pairwell together.
Stage brush is like my favoritenative plant that grows all the
(35:29):
way.
You know.
You find them quail hunting inSouth Texas all the way up into
Canada, and they're more in thearid climates you know of the
western part of the US, butthey're just really important to
the ecosystems and a lot ofthose animals browse on that
brush and so this recipe payshomage to that with garden sage
(35:54):
and it's just sage seasoned onthe steak and then you just
baste it with brown butter.
It couldn't be any easier andit's just those two combination
is just like quintessential falland brown butter.
I mean I just it's fall rightnow, so I mean I'm just like
drilling thinking about it.
(36:16):
And the winter, um, one of myfavorites is a very understated
recipe for rabbit and, um, someroot vegetables.
It's like it's just such asimple hearty soup with um,
primarily potato, but I useturnips a lot because I think a
(36:37):
lot of people don't think aboutcooking with turnips and you can
treat it just like a potato,but it's.
But it's got a lot of leeks init and some cream.
It's just a really nice, hearty, comforting soup.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And that's the rabbit leek and root vegetable dish.
That is incredible and I knowyou talked to a little bit about
some squirrel inclusion incertain things and I know you
talked about you had like gardenrevenge squirrels, right, they
take out some of the stuff thatyou guys grow and so you got to
throw those in and there's someinterchangeability in different
things that you kind of talkabout too.
(37:11):
But that that definitely was aa a quite an interesting dish.
I highlighted that one as well.
I know we know what I was.
Actually my wife had sent me aMeg.
She sent me.
It was a video you did recentlyand I think you called it the
summer on a plate.
Now I know that's not in thebook here, but it was a balsamic
grilled venison and heirloomtomato with I think it was like
a miso honey in there.
(37:32):
Can you tell me a little bitabout that dish, because that's
one that we've circled as?
We're definitely going to betrying that one out.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
So tomatoes, we can grow themfor a huge part of the year here
in Texas, and so I like pairingthem with venison steak in the
summer or any of the hottertimes of the month, like right
now, even though it's fall, it'sstill like summer food to me.
It's fall everywhere else, butso yeah, so I make a balsamic
(38:00):
reduction and you can buy thatalready made like a balsamic
glaze.
But it's very easy to do.
You basically just takebalsamic vinegar and reduce it
on the soap top.
I don't add any sugar.
It actually naturally hasenough sugar that you can get it
down to a glaze, that recipeyou were talking about.
(38:20):
I just add a little bit of misoto it to kind of give it this
like extra umami flair andflavor, because it's the recipe
itself is sort of um, inspiredby oh gosh there, what's the
name of that restaurant on theriver and green oh um, they do
(38:45):
their famous balsamic grilledsteak, and so that's kind of
what it what the riff is.
And so I basically make thatbalsamic glaze, put it on the
grill like I sear it, season it,sear it, baste it with that
glaze and keep, keep, um, keepon, like flipping it on the
grill until that glaze sort ofcaramelizes a little bit, um,
(39:05):
and then you pair it with yourtomatoes and a little extra
glaze, and then I um have somereally good olive oil with some
toasted garlic, and it's inbasil.
It's like a caprese steak,caprese salad with steak.
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Nice.
Well, you know, moving back tothe cookbook, at the tail end of
the cookbook, after you've kindof gone through the seasonal
dishes, and you have a sectiontwo about things better homemade
, where you got mayo, pickles,sausages, rub, seasoning stocks,
and I think that's a definitehighlight that people need to
check out because there's a lotof things you can make on your
(39:43):
own.
You just might need to go goodand give it a little try and and
kind of experiment a bit.
Um, and one of the things thatyou know, it struck me there was
a post that you talked aboutthis might've been about a year
ago, even though you're talkingabout when you're making stocks
and that you roast a lot of thethings before you, you know,
make a stock.
Now, I've always kind of justtaken, you know, if I have, uh,
(40:03):
you know, some leftovers, bonesand carcass, whatever, something
I kind of throw in the waterand I'm making my own stock.
But it had never occurred to me, or I just didn't know about
the idea of roasting it and Iwas kind of curious about what
that changes for you, how thatmight enhance flavors, what was
it that you know?
How is that beneficial forthose who are making their own
stocks?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
So think of it like cooking meat, say.
You've got a recipe and almostevery recipe involving meat
involves searing, sauteing orfrying, grilling, high heat the
meat first, like if you're goingto make a stew, you're going to
(40:45):
sear that meat and then you addall those liquids, because
searing that is what you'redoing.
They call it's called the meyerreaction, where the proteins
and the sugars in that heat theysort of caramelize into this
like really meaty flavor.
That makes it's the thing thatmakes you drool and it's, they
say, like it's an, it's anevolutionary thing.
(41:09):
That uh, happens like that'show we used to know that food
was safe to eat is whenever yousmell that and and you get
hungry, um, so that's like whatyou're doing first.
It's the exact same thing withstock.
It's the same application.
You're roasting those bonesbecause you're trying to create
(41:30):
sort of those meaty brownflavors that sort of make that
dish more savory.
It adds more savoriness to it.
So it's the same thing.
Roasting is just an easy way.
You can't really sear yourbones because of the shape of it
, so it's the same thing.
Roasting is just an easy way.
You can't really see your bonesbecause of the shape of it, so
it's easier to just coat it.
Depending on what it is.
Like venison, you can coat itwith a little tomato paste and
(41:52):
then roast it, and that tomatopaste just sort of adds even
more rich flavors to it Birds.
I don't like to add tomatopaste.
I think some people like it.
I think it makes it a littletoo rich and a little too heavy.
I want it to be a little bit onthe lighter side, but I still
like to roast it and then youthrow that in the pot with your
(42:14):
veggies in the water.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Right on and I wanted to also real quick mention the
book cover and I was curiouswhat dish is that and why did
that make the front cover?
Because I mean, the cover ofbook is always a very important
thing.
What was it about that one doesthat, you're like I want to do
that, or does the photograph andthat meal just turned out so
great?
You're like I think that's theone we're going to go with.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
curious about your approach on that I picked that
one out before we photographedthat.
I wanted that recipe to be thecover.
That recipe there's two roastedpheasants and the story on that
is when we lived in NorthDakota we had our tradition of
going pheasant hunting everymorning on Thanksgiving because
(42:55):
nobody else was in the field.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Great time Sure.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
By the way, if you're ever looking for like the best
time to go hunting on publicland, pick a holiday, christmas,
thanksgiving.
You got the place to yourself.
That's like my hot tip.
And so we used to do that and Iwould always.
When we came back home, I had apheasant already plucked and
ready to go throw it in the oven.
(43:20):
I had my sides prepped, so we'dgo hunting.
I'd come home, I'd shower,throw the it in the oven.
I had my sides prepped, so we'dgo hunting.
I'd come home, I'd shower,throw the birds in the oven and
we'd have our Thanksgiving thatafternoon or evening, just the
two of us.
And we did that for like fouryears, four or five years and it
was a really special memory forme and I wanted that to be on
the cover because the editorswanted something that like that
(43:44):
you could look at it and say,okay, that's wild game and and
so you know I was trying tothink about venison is a hard
one because it just looks likeyou know, red meat, um, and a
bird is is much more iconic andI think, more specifically,
you'll notice, the feet arestill attached and that really
(44:05):
bothers a lot of people, and Ithought my editors were just
going to say absolutely not,because some people are very
turned off, and for me, I thinka big part of what this book is
all about is getting outside,connecting to your food and like
the reminder that there was alife, there was an animal that
(44:26):
died for your meal.
We don't like to be reminded ofthat when we go to the grocery
store and buy something wrappedin plastic, and so I think, in a
way, that those feet reallysort of signify that notion of
of um knowing this animal, this,this animal's life, um that
that became your meal.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Well, and I I also like that.
It kind of ties back in thatfirst experience of you pheasant
hunting and cooking your firstmeal for yourself.
It feels like a full 360 to comeback around to that and I I
liked that it kind of nods tothat and obviously you tell that
story.
Um, you know, you, you talkabout in the book too.
There's like six ways to liveand eat more consciously, and
that was a very important thing.
(45:09):
Obviously, we've talked alittle bit about that and, um,
what are some of the otherthings that you kind of really
hope that settle in with, uh,your readers and that you hope
to be able to convey, uh aboutthe importance of you know while
game cooking, of eatingconsciously, of you know working
within your environment,whether it's you know foraging
or you know what you're going inthe garden.
(45:29):
What is it that you hope thatpeople can kind of take away
when they pick up this book?
And you know, go through that.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
You know, I think you really hit on all the key
points.
I the one thing that I I wantto caveat is that, while this
book is meant to be something ofan inspiration and a a glimpse
into, like, like, what mypersonal lifestyle is, this is
something that also took meyears to get to a point of of
(45:57):
living it.
None of it happened overnight.
I did not become a hunter andfisher 24-7, like year-round,
and a gardener and all thesethings overnight, and I think it
can be really overwhelming andvery expensive, very expensive,
to just say, hey, all my meat'sgoing to, I'm going to hunt for
all my meat.
(46:18):
It's going to all come from aCSA basket.
What I want people to understandis that you can embrace this
type of lifestyle without being100%, all in all or nothing.
You know you can take elementsof this that work and fit your
lifestyle, because it is verydifficult to hunt and fish year
round Like it's.
There's not very many peoplewho are able to do that and I
(46:41):
feel extremely fortunate to tobe able to have that opportunity
and I think, to be able to, youknow, say I'm putting this
amount of money to the side andthat's my CSA basket.
It's a hard thing to do and Idon't expect people to to be
able to do it all the time, butwhat I want is to be able to do
(47:02):
it all the time, but what I wantis to be able to feel inspired,
to take and find something, apart of that that works for
their life.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Well, I think you've done an amazing job with it.
It's a phenomenal book.
I'm very excited, everyone.
It comes out October 8th,wherever books are sold.
I know that there's a placethat people can, you know,
pre-order, you knowbarnesandnoblemeat,
demeateatercom, and you know,for those who want to follow you
a little bit more and kind ofsee you know, as this, you know,
continues to evolve and youknow the dishes that you have to
(47:32):
share and you work with Meteor,where can people go ahead and
follow you on your socials andyou know websites there.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, I'm on the main social channels Instagram,
facebook, even TikTok, althoughI'm not very active on TikTok.
Danielle Pruitt is my handle,just my name, so I'm pretty easy
to find.
And then you can find a lot ofstuff that I do for Meat Eater
on our YouTube channel, yepchannel.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yep, and then also, if you go to the mediacom and
you search your name there too,there will be a list of a ton of
different articles anddifferent recipes there too.
So I highly suggest people goand check that out as well.
You know, a question that I aska lot of my you know guests and
I was curious to get your takeis one about legacy.
(48:19):
You know, what is it that youhope to be able to leave behind?
Obviously, you're involved indoing some amazing work in and
of yourself and then workingwith, you know, the meat eater
and all those that fall underthe umbrella.
I mean, it's obviously ajuggernaut of individuals that
are really helping.
You know education,entertaining.
You know conservation, all thedifferent things that are kind
(48:42):
of underneath that.
But I was kind of curious whatit is that you kind of hope that
you can.
You know conservation, all thedifferent things that are kind
of underneath that but I waskind of curious what it is that
you kind of hope that you can,you know, leave your mark by
leaving, you know, behind someof these things.
What is it you think aboutlegacy at all?
Obviously, you know, being anew parent too is, you know, as
far as in a personal setting,what is it that you know, you
hope to?
You know, kind of be an examplefor, for, uh, you know your
kiddo and I know it's a bigquestion you can kind of tackle
(49:03):
it however you want.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
You know I mean food is.
Food is great, right, like,recipes are wonderful.
I I really like to cook ordevelop recipes for the home
cook.
I'm not here to be a Michelinstar chef or work at a
restaurant.
I'm here to to help people ummake the best of the food that
(49:25):
they hunt or forage.
Um, that's what the recipes aretailored to do.
But as far as legacy and nowthat I have a kid, you know I'm
looking out my back window Um,we just bought like a little
three acres um in Rockport andit backs up to a bird sanctuary,
(49:45):
and one of the things I'm mostexcited about is getting to
share with my son the excitementof just watching birds.
Like I wanted to know thedifference of hunting birds and
appreciating wildlife withouthaving to shoot them.
(50:08):
I want them to understand whatconservation means Um, and I
want to like how hunting tiesinto that Um, but but the idea
of just being able to sit backthere and watch migration come
in and and have thatappreciation and know that you
can enjoy this, this beautifulsanctuary.
There's a, there's an alligatorout there, um, I had, you know,
(50:32):
all the native plants.
Like I wanted to find thatappreciation for, for this
little piece that we have,that's that's been left alone
and untouched and we get towatch it and I and know the
difference between that and notneeding to kill everything.
But we're also going to takehunting and that's going to be a
big deal.
But, um, I think so when I thinkof legacy, I think of cons,
(50:56):
truly, I think of conservationand I think of of what we have
to leave for the future behind,for for the future is all going
to be rooted in how we take careof the things.
Today, I'm very, very intoplanting native species of
plants and preserving nativehabitats, which is it sounds
(51:19):
strange.
You know I'm a recipe developer, I wrote a cookbook but truly,
at the heart of everything I do,it's all about the preservation
of, of our wildlife and ourresources, and so that's kind of
the legacy that I want to passis to pass that enthusiasm and
love for, for the land.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Well said.
Well, danielle, I reallyappreciate you joining me today.
I'm really excited for yourbook to hit the shelves.
I think everyone's going tolove it.
Uh, it's phenomenal.
Um, once again, you know, wetold you everyone where you can
kind of pick it up.
I will have some links in theshow notes below.
That is wild and whole seasonalrecipes for the conscious cook
comes out October 8th.
Make sure you guys go ahead andmake your pre-orders, order
(52:02):
them and uh, yes, once again, Ireally appreciate it and all the
best to you and uh, hope youhave a great hunting season.
It's upon us, right?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
All right, you're welcome.
We'll talk soon.
You take care Thanks.
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