Foraging with my Bicycle

(asiya wadud via sanfranciscomag)

Meet Asiya Wadud, that’s her in the photo above. She’s my current favorite lifestyle heroine on a bicycle. She has brought LOTS of attention to urban foraging and she does it all via her bicycle. She wants to win $10,000. She’d use the funds to purchase bicycles, organize a series of walking/ biking tours of Oakland (Oakland, CA is where she urban forages). Recently there was a Forage Dinner. Surprise, surprise the chef was none other then Jerome Wagg who has been a great friend of mine since (dare I say) the late 80’s.

A while back I did a combo post featuring one my chictopia outfits and more relevant in relationship to this post I talked about picking wild berries.

Well I wanted to share the fruits of that foraging foray....

(elderberry perserve photo by ridingpretty)

This is the elderberry preserve I made from the berries. I’ve been making elderberry preserves from wild foraged elderberry going back as many summers as I can remember. My grandfather got me started. He was famous for his chokecherry and elderberry wines and mead. My grandmother thought it was more important to learn to make the preserves so that’s what she taught me. At age 16 I tried making my grandfather’s recipe for chokecherry mead…and it was sort of a disaster, so I stuck with making preserves instead. So there you have it. I’ve been a ‘forager’ forever!

Madrone berries, just picked and ready for a fruit compote.....

(madrone photo by ridingpretty)

The path...

(photo by ridingpretty)

I ride my bicycle very slowly when staking out new areas to forage in. You really have to look and observe the terrain.

Berries in the wild....

(oregon grape photo by ridingpretty)

(elderberry photo by ridingpretty)

Do you use your bicycle in ways that can inspire others like Asiya and her Forage Oakland?
Or do you go foraging yourself with your bicycle?

Home at last after a successful forage... peaceful, contemplative watching the sunset.