Flora & Fungi Wild Food Adventures
Fall in Love with the Outdoors through Food
Small group, hands-on foraging, fishing, and cooking excursions crafted to deepen our relationships with the natural world.
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Pop-Up Ecosystem-based Dinners and Creative Collaboration Food Events.
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Sign up to our monthly mailing list to learn about upcoming adventures! We are looking for safe morel hunting spots, a ritual-based wild dinner deep in the forest, and wild truffle pop-ups, and more.
Upcoming Events
Thu, Sep 28SausalitoSep 28, 5:00 PM – 8:30 PMSausalito, Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965, USASep 28, 5:00 PM – 8:30 PMSausalito, Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965, USAWe will have a dinner featuring local harvest and seafood on the waterfront in Sausalito and talk about ecologies of people and nature and how this unique community has co-evolved. We’ll then paddle the bay with knowledgeable guides and experience the supermoon lighting up the San Francisco Bay.
Sat, Dec 02Olema, CA 94956, USADec 02, 10:00 AM – 12:30 PMOlema, CA 94956, USA
Multiple DatesSat, Dec 09Salt Point State ParkDec 09, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PMSalt Point State Park , 25050 CA-1, Jenner, CA 95450, USA- Multiple DatesSun, Dec 10Salt Point State ParkDec 10, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PMSalt Point State Park , 25050 CA-1, Jenner, CA 95450, USA
Sat, Sep 16San FranciscoSep 16, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AMSan Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, CA, USASep 16, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AMSan Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, CA, USALearn to navigate the salty, working waterfront of San Francisco and buy anchovies from the live bait pens along with super fresh seafood straight from the fishermen and women. We'll then fillet and break down the fish together.
Sat, Sep 09Golden Gate ParkSep 09, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PMGolden Gate Park , San Francisco, CA, USASep 09, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PMGolden Gate Park , San Francisco, CA, USAJoin us for a stroll through Golden Gate Park and learn about the trees, flowers, and forces of personality that created it. We'll identify summer edibles like rose geraniums, black currants and redwood tips as we go. After our walk ,there will be wild food bites.- Wed, Aug 30SausalitoAug 30, 5:30 PM – 9:00 PMSausalito, Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965, USAAug 30, 5:30 PM – 9:00 PMSausalito, Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965, USAWe will have a dinner featuring local anchovies & halibut on the waterfront in Sausalito and talk about ecologies of people and nature and how this unique community has co-evolved. We’ll then paddle the bay with knowledgeable guides and experience the supermoon lighting up the San Francisco Bay.
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“A deliciously thoughtful book with plenty of recipes for beginning or experienced foragers. I’ll have the mushroom pâté, cheesy pasta with truffles, and a candy cap old-fashioned, please.”
—Alan Bergo, James Beard Award-winning chef and author, and winner of Hulu’s Chefs vs. Wild
“With both simple and aspirational recipes, and delightful prose throughout, Maria Finn draws you into a deeper connection to nature through its wonderful, wild foods. Food is the lure, but the end goal is a realignment of human systems in sync with the pace and beauty of Mother Nature.”
—Becky Selengut, author of Good Fish and Shroom
This gorgeous book is a celebration of wild food, foraging and cultivating connection to the natural world. The recipes inside highlight ingredients from coast to forest and inspire you to get creative, get outside and participate in the surrounding ecosystem; to live a healthier, more pleasurable, and more delicious life.
- Emma Teal Privat and Claire Neaton, Co-owners of Salmon Sisters and authors of The Salmon Sisters: Feasting, Fishing and Living in Alaska & The Salmon Sisters: Harvest & Heritage
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Celebrate the pleasure of the wilderness (or even your backyard) with this approachable forage-to-kitchen cookbook featuring 110 recipes using foragable foods—from seaweed love to mushroom lust and everything in between.
Identify foragable foods in your own backyard to create simple, rustic recipes from the bounty of the coast, forest, and urban spaces up and down the West Coast.
Recipes include:
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Morels, Asparagus, Fava Beans, and Fiddlehead Ferns with Burrata
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Black Truffle Pot de Crème with Preserved Sakura Cherry Blossoms
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Fire-Roasted Butter Clams with Seaweed Gremolata
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Spruce Tip and Juniper Berry Sockeye Salmon Gravlax
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Chilled Huckleberries with Campfire Caramel and Seaweed Salt
“Flaming Pine Needle Mussels! Stinging Nettle Gnocchi! Cherry Blossom Truffles! With her backwoods bona fides and visionary palate, Maria Finn has taken foraging to the next level. No matter where you live, Forage.Gather.Feast will draw you into a delightful ‘adventure with purpose’ as it unlocks the layers of meaning and deliciousness permeating our woods and coastlines. Your kitchen game will never be the same. Neither will your soul.”
—Rowan Jacobsen, author of Truffle Hound and A Geography of Oysters
Steeped in the magic of the West Coast, Forage. Gather. Feast. is a beautiful book. Maria's deeply intuitive approach to cooking celebrates an abundance of wild foods from seaside to forests. Her book will be favorite in my kitchen for a long time.
—Jenny McGruther, NTP, creator of Nourished Kitchen
Maria & Flora Jayne
Your Guides
Maria Finn is an author, chef and speaker. She lives on a houseboat in Sausalito. Before adopting Flora Jayne, the truffle dog-in-training, she was an ocean faring cat lady. (She still loves the sea and her cats). She often writes about food and sustainability and so when she began working as a private chef, she focused on sourcing regenerative foods and food she forages along the California Coast. From seaweed to chanterelles, she believes that harvesting wild food is an intimate and visceral way to connect with nature.
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She smelled her first black Périgord truffle about 10 years ago. It reached inside her and made her want it more than anything in the world. This desire has led her to the forest and her truffle dog, Flora Jayne.
Photo by Shelley Alger
Testimonials
Maria's porcini camp was great! She walked us through the identifying features, habitat, and indicator species before leading a forage through likely territory. Throughout the day, Maria shared her deep knowledge of the local ecology, identified other mushrooms and plants we found while hunting, and shared stories about other mushrooming adventures. The camp concluded with an incredible campfire porcini risotto for lunch. While conditions on the day-of weren't ideal, we retraced our steps a couple weeks later and found several enormous porcinis!
Andreas Bastian
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Alaska Wild Food Camp changed our lives! We moved closer to Alaska after we went on Maria’s mind and mouth expansive experience last August. We paddled in a glacier lake, learned how to fish and prep whole sockeye, identify edible sea plants and forest fungi to bring back to a comfy camp and eat everything but the fin. Recommend for anyone ready to see where mother nature is still a true wild child.
-Pamela & Denise
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We went to Alaska last summer with Maria and her team. The trip was well organized and in a stunning and unique location that would not be generally available. The food camp involved a combination of food-educational events such as mushroom hunting, seaweed gathering, breaking down salmon, and cooking. We also did sea kayaking and guided hikes with a local expert on the history and geology of the stunningly beautiful area. People could participate as they desired, it was a low-pressure, high-fun environment that was the perfect blend of relaxed socializing with individual time and organized activities without pressure to attend. Make room, I'm signing up for more!
Kari Kelly
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