There's a very particular satisfaction to be had from eating wild things. The connection to nature, the bold (if largely misguided) sense of self-sufficiency and the discovery of new flavors all add up to a deeply enriching experience. If you've never ventured into the fields and forests in search of a delicious morsel—wild blackberries! fiddleheads! oyster mushrooms!—you're missing something very primal. Fear can hold us back, but stop for a moment to ponder that. We come from nature and it is only there that we are truly in our element. Let knowledge dispel ingorance and find your way back to the wilderness. I will lure you off the beaten path with a couple of easily identified wild treats.

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I don't know what to say about the school shootings. We all spent the weekend besieged by those images. I am haunted by the spectre of Adam Lanza—the skeletal face punctuated by wide, alarmed eyes, that strange sculptural cap of hair. Our president says that these tragedies must end, but that is a passive statement. We must end them. Through action. If you have not yet signed this petition, I urge you to do so, and make a contribution to the Brady Campaign as well, if you can.

Period. New paragraph. I haven't yet given you a list of my favorites from this year's crop of new cookbooks, and there were many. I did tell you about Naomi Duguid's wonderful Burma: Rivers of Flavor (my review is here). Andrea Nguyen's Asian Tofu is another excellent one. I look forward to delving into spicemaster Lior Lev Sercarz's newly published The Art of Blending. And I plan to attempt many more experiments under the tutelage of Sandor Katz's essential The Art of Fermentation. But for the sheer temptation of bold, bright flavors packed into relatively quick and easy recipes, I will be turning time and again to Yotam Ottolenghi's new book, Jerusalem, written with his business partner Sami Tamimi.
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