As we last left him, our hero was desperately trying to re-create that fudge cookie madness of his childhood. OK, been watching old cartoons a bit while doing all of this cocoa-based reminiscing, but I digress. I thought I should give a quick update on my last entry on this subject. At Amy and Alec's urging, I tried the Dare Ultimate Fudge Cookies that they had recommended to me from the last post. They were, much to my pleasure (and horror because I CANT STOP EATING THEM), every bit as good as the old Burry Fudgetowns.

Then I had the kids try the new Oreo Fudgees that one of the commenters had recommended last time. They deemed them better than the all-chocolate Oreo, but not as good as the Dares. One plus though: A great shape for the dunkers of the cookie world. (C'mon folks, stand up and be recognized. We know you're out there. Do not be ashamed of your milky-finger habits)

Elsewhere on the fudge cookie front, we have not yet had an all-chocolate EL Fudge sighting since our one commenter claimed to have bought a package. No word from them either. Maybe they were older than we thought? Get well soon fellow cookie addict!

The mallow family contains several plants we see growing wild. Common mallow is the one most easily found, and was growing all over my friends Adirondack farm. It seems to love disturbed soil and likes to grow along fences, barn walls, curbs, and other obstructions. Relatives include cotton, okra, hibiscus, and durian. The original marshmallows were made from a plant actually called marsh mallow by boiling pieces of the root of the plant in water, adding sugar and whipping. Then, the thick, white confection was dropped in spoon fulls onto waxed paper to dry into candy.

The kids and I spent 3 days last week in the Southern Adirondacks. A family friend, who is quite an outdoorsman, and experienced birdwatcher, purchased about 40 acres a couple years ago near Hinckley Reservoir in upstate New York. He has been telling me that I need to come up for a visit, and we finally took him up on the offer. One thing that he mentioned in advance of the visit was that he wanted me to show him what was edible on his property. The next several posts will all be from that visit.

I can remember watching commercials for Burry Fudge Town cookies as a kid. My mother would rarely buy them always telling us that they weren't a good value. I can't really tell you how they compared to the other fudge cookies of the day price wise, but the few times that Waldbaums would have them on sale we would get a box or two, and they were the best of the all-chocolate sandwich cookies.

Funny that the other fudge sandwich cookies of the day are also gone. My next favorite, and a good alternative to the Burry was Keebler's Chocolate Fudge Sandwich Cookie. These were almost as good, and must have been a better value in moms eyes, as they were frequently in the house (along with another cookie from the past, the Keebler Rich-N-Chips). At some point I discovered Sunshine's Bavarian Fingers, an all chocolate version of the Vienna Finger. Last but not least was the all chocolate version of the Keebler El Fudge. Both of these are gone now too! Does the public really loathe chocolate redundancy that much?

My son Alec, who frequently tags along with Amy and me on our foraging hikes, is camping this week in upstate New York, with my wife Marti, and his cousin Colten. I received a picture mail message today around lunchtime which is displayed here. The caption in the text message read: Your son's catch. Complete with butter and garnish!

There are several plants I am familiar with that are considered weeds. Dandelion comes to mind instantly. We'll wait till fall to talk more about our little yellow lawn devils. I was shopping in the Union Square Greenmarket recently during a lunchtime walk, and amongst the multi-colored organic carrots and varietal greens, was purslane. Purlsane is a slightly succulent sprawling weed, with thick reddish stems. It radiates out, flat to the ground from a central root. I had seen this plant in my garden and flower beds before learning from one of my books what it was. Purslane is raised as a crop in other parts of the world, where it is used raw as a salad green, or cooked like spinach. Here we relentlessly pull it from the garden, and just throw it away. I had told a neighbor of mine that seemed to be overrun with the stuff to save it for me a few years ago.

Grilled fruit is a healthy alternative dessert, and easy in the summer when the grill is already going. Almost any fruit can be grilled as long as it holds its shape through the process. smaller fruits can be skewered along with chunks of larger fruits. A side of sauce or cream for dipping is a good addition to your caramelized treats, as well as a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Trying this out couldn't be easier. Get some ripe pears and peaches but not too ripe. Quarter, core, and peel each one into four wedges. Grill until caramelized and smoky, and serve with a small mound of whipped cream on the side. I grilled the ones pictured here earlier in the day and then hid them in the fridge for later. No one complained about not having cookies or cake that night!

In continuing with the backyard wild teas, I can't let summer pass by without mentioning this wild lemonade substitute. Sumac grows like a weed in this country. It is a relative to the much hated poison sumac, but as the flowers give way to the fruit, you can't mistake this harmless, small tree for anything else.

The branches are fuzzy, hence the name of this variety. The fuzzy clusters of fruit are what we're after. Watch these from June through September and grab the red ones, as they ripen, but before the rain hits them and washes away the flavor. Soak a couple of clusters in a pitcher of ice-cold water in your refrigerator for one to two hours. Your taste buds will know how long. Keep the water cold to prevent bitterness. Strain the results through a fine strainer, or cloth, and serve sweetened. It has a very lemonade-like flavor.

Since these trees seem to grow almost anywhere, please be careful of pollutants and heavy traffic. I doubt anyone would be upset with you for over picking these giant weeds though. See you on the trail!

Brambles are in season! What are brambles? Raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, swampberries, boysenberries, cloudberries, black caps, and any other wonderful members of the rose family that produce an aggregate berry. A recent trip to Kingston Point Park in Kingston, NY, had us eating almost everything we could pick.

The berries that grew at the point were what the locals here commonly call black caps. These are wild black raspberries. They are usually found on upright, thorny, raspberry canes, and look like a slightly smaller version of the commercial variety. The taste is excellent.

Amy and Alec found a nice stand of wild red raspberries, looking much like commercial ones, and a few bushes of the odd, maple-leafed, purple-flowering-raspberry near Esopus, NY. These are also upright plants and easy to locate. You can spot them well in advance in the Spring with their small, white, flowers. The purple flowering raspberry has a very showy rose-like purple flower.

Blackberries, dewberries, and swampberries, grow along runners tangled in the weeds. These berries have larger aggregrate parts than the raspberry-like fruits, just like store-bought blackberries.

I realize that none of these ingredients are considered wild like the things I usually write about, but it keeps within my love of frugal foods. I love turning leftovers into something that makes people say you made this with what?

Leftover grilled chicken is a great starting point. I use it on top of salads, or as a great starter for fajitas. Endive, along with its cousins frisee, radicchio, and escarole, is a relative of the plant chicory, which is seen along roadsides all over the country. Don't expect to pick and eat wild chicory though. It is almost always too bitter to use. I will cover other uses for it in a later post. A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending an event at an upstate college where the chef went crazy on endive hors d'oeuvres. This wasn't one of his creations, but that event inspired me and started my love of this wonderful spoon-shaped green.

Separate your endive into individual leaves. Lay a thin slice of cheese (I used an aged swiss) along the bottom of each piece of endive, then add two to three small chunks of your grilled chicken, a small slice of avocado, some chopped sweet onion, and cover with alfalfa sprouts. Drizzle some olive oil over each one, and a small amount of sea salt and ground pepper. Serve any extra ingredients around the stuffed leaves.

I guarantee that your leftover-phobic family members will be cured after trying this.

I love showing this common weed to people. Pineapple weed is related to chamomile, which it resembles, except it looks like someone removed all of the petals from the flowers. I'm sure many of you have seen this plant because it grows in some of the worst soil, sometimes appearing in gravel or growing out of the cracks in pavement. Try to avoid the ones on very busy highways or near industry.

The best feature of pineapple weed is also the best method of identification. Pick off a small piece of the plant, with flowers attached and crush it in your fingers. It actually does smell like pineapple! Collect some of the flower heads, bring them home, and wash in a strainer. These can be used fresh, or to preserve them just air dry in a warm place, or quick dry in a warm (180 degrees F) oven for a couple of hours. Some people like to use the whole plant, but it can add a slight bitterness to the final product.

Steep 2 teaspoons of flower heads, or one whole small plant in hot water for 10 minutes and strain. Sweeten with honey if desired, and enjoy. I would imagine that it has similar properties to that of chamomile since it is closely related. If you really like pineapple weed tea, you can try to collect some of the seeds from the older matured flowers and grow them yourself. Careful though, as it is a weed and tends to spread easily. Remove the flowers before they drop their seeds, and reserve a few for the next planting.

Many of the plants I read about and see can be used for tea. Some must be dried first, and some can be used dried or fresh. I would like to start with the most common ones first. These plants can be found almost anywhere. I found these three growing in my yard upstate.

While mowing the lawn Sunday, I smelled the familiar spicy-minty smell of ground ivy, also known as gill-over-the-ground, creeping charlie, catsfoot, and several other localized nicknames. Ground ivy is a small ground cover that frequently runs amok at the edges of lawns and around buildings. It has fan-shaped, toothed, opposed leaves, and produces small funnel-shaped blue to violet flowers. It grows with runners, and will appear like many small vines tangled in the other weeds that grow at the edges of landscaped areas.

Crushing and smelling the leaves will confirm that you have ground ivy. It has a distinctively mint-like odor. Tea from ground ivy should be made from dried leaves. I did some research on the uses for ground ivy tea. The medicinal uses are extensive.

Back when I first wrote about cattails, I promised a return to the subject soon for something I described as cattails on the cob. Allow me to explain this delicacy to you. In the late spring, if you watch cattail plants, you will notice that the well known sausage-like fruits of the cattail plant start to mature inside of the central leaves. Look at the leaves for a swelling and pull them out of the plant. If you slowly peel the husks away, you will find the two parts of the cattail flower inside. The upper, or male part of the flower is what we're after. These green spikes will bloom and produce pollen once they emerge from the husk which makes the season very short. If you find too many already blooming, don't fret, because the pollen is another of the offerings of this amazing plant.

Amy, Alec, and I journeyed Saturday once again to The Great Vly Swamp, in West Camp, New York. While Amy and Alec sought after dragonflies and birds to photograph, I started checking the cattails. I had just caught the season at the tail end, as many of the flowers were covered with pollen, and some of the sausage-like seed heads had already started to form. Even this late in the season, I still managed to harvest enough of the flower spikes to make an interesting side dish. Before we left the swamp, I grabbed a clean bag and collected some pollen by carefully bending the stem of the pollen covered flower into the bag and hitting the stem a couple of times. I managed to get about half a cup, but could have collected a lot more.

A quick look around before leaving gave me some other reasons to return to the swamp at a later date. Pickerelweed which will produce a nutty snack food in the early fall, and arrowheads, which produce a good wild potato substitute.

Marisa wrote about yogurt making about a month ago. I would like to re-visit the subject from an extremely frugal angle. With wild fruits coming into season (like mulberries), yogurt is a great way to serve nature's sweet bounty.

I can remember trying yogurt for the first time as a kid. Most of the brands had a distinctive sour taste, and fruit on the bottom. They came in 8-ounce containers, and sold for anywhere from 25 to 50 cents a cup. Now, with prices double that or more, and the cups shrinking to 6 or even 4 ounces (who can eat 4 ounces of yogurt and call it a satisfying experience?), I decided to re-visit the old fashioned way of getting yogurt. MAKING IT YOURSELF!

This isn't just for frugality. I really enjoy making things at home that most people buy prepared. Some of the things we purchase without questioning whether or not they could be created right in our kitchens are actually quite easy to make. Yogurt is one of them, and requires very little in the way of equipment.

There are yogurt makers that you can purchase. I have to tell you though that they are really not necessary. The only piece of equipment you might need to buy is a kitchen thermometer. You will need a thermometer that can read as high as 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) and as low as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). For your first batch only, you need starter. A tablespoon of good plain yogurt works fine as long as it has active cultures (check the label). After your first batch you just need to conserve some yogurt each time to use as starter for your next batch.

This past weekend I took two good long walks. The first was along the Hackensack River, on a nice flat trail at Mill Creek Park in Secaucus NJ, and a second walk in Little Ferry, NJ in Losen Slote Park. Amy and Alec were away for the weekend, so please excuse my feeble attempts at photography.

Mill Creek did not have too much to offer that day, but is a great walk if you enjoy birdwatching. I did find these mulberries pictured here though. Mulberry trees in our area come in two varieties. Red mulberry, and white mulberry. The tree known as red mulberry is not quite as common in our area. The white mulberry is native to Asia, and was brought here in a failed attempt to produce domestic silk. Silkworms feed and spin on mulberry leaves. It has grown like a weed here, as many suburban homeowners have learned. Fortunately the berries are quite good.

Mulberry trees have leaves with an oval or lobed shape, sometimes with both shapes on the same tree. Small elongated fuzzy flowers in early spring are replaced with what looks like an elongated blackberry in late spring. The berries are just ripening now in this area. Now, a word of caution. White mulberries will sometimes be white, pink, red or almost black when ripe, but all of them are still referred to as white mulberries. This can be confusing and should be considered when harvesting because unripe mulberries will make you quite ill, but are not known to be deadly. It is because of this that I usually stick to the darker variety. A good way to be sure though is to harvest them by laying a sheet on the ground under the tree and giving a good shake. Only the ripe berries should fall.