Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time
Georgia Pellegrini
Da Capo Lifelong Books
What happens when a classically-trained New York chef and fearless omnivore heads out of the city and into the wild to track down the ingredients for her meals? After abandoning Wall Street to embrace her lifelong love of cooking, Georgia Pellegrini comes face to face with her first kill. From honoring that first turkey to realizing that the only way we truly know where our meat comes from is if we hunt it ourselves, Pellegrini embarks on a wild ride into the real world of local, organic, and sustainable food.
Teaming up with veteran hunters, she travels over field and stream in search of the main course—from quail to venison and wild boar, from elk to javelina and squirrel. Pellegrini’s road trip careens from the back of an ATV chasing wild hogs along the banks of the Mississippi to a dove hunt with beer and barbeque, to the birthplace of the Delta Blues. Along the way, she meets an array of unexpected characters—from the Commish, a venerated lifelong hunter, to the lawyer-by day, duck-hunting-Bayou-philosopher at dawn—who offer surprising lessons about food and life. Pellegrini also discovers the dangerous underbelly of hunting when an outing turns illegal—and dangerous.
More than a food-laden hunting narrative, Girl Hunteralso teaches you how to be a self-sufficient eater. Each chapter offers recipes for finger-licking dishes like:
wild turkey and oyster stew
stuffed quail
pheasant tagine
venison sausage
fundamental stocks, brines, sauces, and rubs
suggestions for interchanging proteins within each recipe
Each dish, like each story, is an adventure from beginning to end.
An inspiring, illuminating, and often funny journey into unexplored territories of haute cuisine, Girl Hunter captures the joy of rolling up your sleeves and getting to the heart of where the food you eat comes from.
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BIOGRAPHY
"My passion for good food, for simple food, began at an early age, on a boulder by the side of a creek as I caught my trout for breakfast. I grew up on the same land my great-grandfather owned and worked. This place was called Tulipwood, and there my great-aunt could name every photosynthetic organism on the land; my grandmother made meatloaf, balsamic vinaigrette and egg dip with an intoxicating savoir-faire; and my father raised honeybees and quince trees with the care typically devoted to a newborn. This connection to the land and the deep satisfaction one gets from manual labor stayed with me through college and even during the years that I strayed onto the path of least resistance and into the world of finance.
After a bit of soul searching I decided to leave the cubicle world behind and enrolled in culinary school. I soon began to work in farm to table restaurants in the U.S. and France, driving heavy farm equipment, and harvesting both meat and plants for dinner. I found that I was most interested in the foragers and fig collectors and salami makers that arrived to the restaurants with their goods, and soon befriended them and went on journeys with them, through the woods, into curing rooms, and over the rolling hills of olive oil vineyards. They took me under their wing and shared their stories about what it is like to step off the grid and devote one's life to doing things the slow way, the traditional way, simply because it is what you love to do. I call them "Food Heroes," and their stories are now a book.
Next I took my adventure one step further and into the wild. I rolled up my sleeves myself and got to the heart of where my ingredients as a chef really come from. My next book "Girl Hunter," is my wild journey over field and stream in search of the main course. It is full of stories and delicious recipes, offering inspiration on how to be a more self sufficient eater.
I continue to chronicle my adventures every day at: www.georgiapellegrini.com.
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Amazon's book of the month: "Through geographically and gastronomically diverse essays, professional chef Georgia Pellegrini gives a voice to something that's been missing in the discussion of where our food comes from: meat. Faced with a freshly killed turkey and her personal decision to either become vegan or head to the source, Pellegrini picks up a shotgun and learns to hunt her own food. She introduces readers to her teachers and locals around the country who share hunting and cooking tips and impresses upon readers her determination to develop tasty recipes for even the most challenging game, like javelina, with as little waste as possible. More than just a collection of essays or recipes, Girl Hunter is an important addition to the conversation about how we eat and how we live." --JoVon Sotak
