On the hunt for huckleberries

Last year I went huckleberry crazy.

The berry madness was started by my friend and business neighbor, restaurateur Kirsten Burt. Kirsten bought a cabin a few years ago in the Hood Canal area. I said, "You will never use it — you're too busy!" Wrong! It's just close enough and yet far enough that a quick, relaxing ferry ride and an hour-and-a-half drive gets you out of town fast — to a place that feels days away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Last year in late summer Kirsten started to bring me huckleberries to "do ... something ... with." I was in awe of how many she was picking. She joked that her cabin had become Madame K's Huckleberry Farm. I piped up and said, "I'm coming with you next weekend!" I love to forage, and it had been quite a while since I had taken some time off to get out in the woods. And so I did.

Well, it was a huckleberry bonanza. Mind you, these are fall huckleberries — the blue kind, not the bright red, summer variety — though you may also end up picking wild fall blueberries that grow side-by-side with the huckles. Roadsides, trails and Kirsten's foresty "yard" were loaded with bushes and berries.

Locals said it was the biggest crop ever. I called it "milking the huckleberry cow" — because that's exactly how I picked them: pulling the berries directly off the branch with two hands and right into my bucket.

With the mild fall we had, picking lasted well into early November. My staff would cringe as we came back with more coolers and buckets overflowing with berries. Now, the tasty results of the huckleberry-recipe testing was not what caused the cringing — but it was the cleaning of these tiny purple pearls.

Leaves, spiders and potato bugs that hibernated underneath the berry-laden branches went into our buckets, as we were on a fast picking mission. It became a game: Who could pick the most the fastest? All-in-all, we ended up with more than 150 pounds of these Northwest jewels. (If you've ever picked these tiny berries, you know that is a lot!)

And with every weekend's huckleberry booty came lots of delicious dishes. The first one, and Kirsten's favorite, was a cabin dinner that I put together. Sweet potatoes roasted with rosemary and finished off with some of the day's harvest accompanied that night's entrée and were extra-fantastic after a day outdoors. The next morning, we made a Huckleberry Compote that is quick and easy to whip up and is great served over waffles, pancakes or yogurt. Bonus: You can keep it refrigerated for up to 3 weeks.

Later, back in the city, I developed more huckleberry recipes. To share the result of that work with you, I'm including Pan-Seared Chicken Breast with Huckleberries, Blue Cheese & Port Sauce. This dish would be a winning centerpiece for a fall dinner party. I might serve it with garlic mashed potatoes, roasted winter squash or polenta.

And, of course, I had to make a pie. But I think that an all-huckleberry pie — though delicious — is a bit decadent; a whole pie made of just huckleberries takes a ton of berries, and that's a lot of picking time. So, I made a version that uses just one cup of berries, and the rest of the filling is apple. You still get a great berry flavor, especially when wrapped in my spice crust — a classic pie-crust dough that gets a tasty twist from the addition of graham cracker crumbs and ground nutmeg.

And to preserve your berries to enjoy throughout the year, stir up a batch of my Huckleberry 'cello, a spin on Italian limoncello liqueur and a lovely libation to sip when the winter skies are gray.

P.S.: Please don't ask me where exactly we pick. Just like a mushroom picker, I have been sworn to secrecy. But don't worry, there are lots and lots of huckleberry bushes out there ready for the picking!

Kathy Casey is a food, beverage and restaurant concept consultant and food writer. She owns Kathy Casey Food Studios. Her "Dishing" column appears the first Wednesday of the month in The Seattle Times food section.