Sugar Shack in Deadwood, South Dakota

Lori Writer / Heavy Table

“This is a prime edible,” says accomplished author and outdoor enthusiast Teresa Marrone. She reaches out and gently tugs the stem of the weed at her knee towards me so that I can view the powdery, spade-shaped leaves. ”Lamb’s quarters,” she says. “Like spinach, but better.”

“I have that in my butterfly garden,” I say. And if it ventures beyond the borders of that, it’s a prime candidate for the weed whacker, I think. I felt an instant stab of regret for all of the lamb’s quarters I’ve ripped out and sent to an untimely demise atop my compost heap, when I could have been enjoying them steam-sauteed in butter and garlic or in baked in eggs and savory pies as Marrone describes in her book Abundantly Wild: Collecting and Cooking Wild Edibles in the Upper Midwest.

“Well, there are a lot of things that look like lamb’s quarters,” Marrone says, “so you need to be sure.” She then points out distinguishing features, including rounded teeth on the edges of the leaves and the way leaves are attached, alternately, on hairy stems.

After spending only a couple of hours with Teresa Marrone, “Julia Child of the Wild” (as Brett Laidlaw, one of the organizers of the Midtown Farmers Market, calls her), or with one of her books, you’ll never look at your yard, or ordinary city park, the same way again. Fortified with what you’ve learned from Marrone’s concise, practical descriptions and her sharp, clear photos, where you once saw flowers, leaves, and stems, you now see “key features”; and, where you once saw scrubby meadows, abandoned farmsteads, and shady stream banks, you now see “habitat.”

Marrone, who has been gathering, cooking with, and writing about (including as Managing Editor of a series of outdoors-themed cookbooks) wild foods for more than two decades, wrote, and did the photography for, the recently-released Wild Berries & Fruits Field Guide: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan ($14.95, 280 pages, full color throughout, softcover with durable glossy cover finish, 4-3/8 x 6 inches, publisher Adventure Publications, Inc.) and companion book, Cooking with Wild Berries & Fruits of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan ($12.95, 176 pages, softcover with durable glossy cover finish, spiral-bound or traditional binding, publisher Adventure Publications, Inc.).

Lori Writer / Heavy Table

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