And this past weekend exemplified just that! We are blessed and thankful to have someone as passionate and knowledgeable about natural, fresh, healthy food on our team that shows up and does the good work. Big shout out to RTR team member Bear Montgomery Crevier for helping us to elevate the whole experience with his cooking and knowledge! Fishing heals the mind body and soul then at the end of the day the food does the same again.
Mario with a nice brown trout from the weekend!
Bear and the crew enjoying a beautiful meal at Foolhardy Hill.
Bear prepares these meals with passion knowing he is providing his brothers and sisters with, local, organic, nutritious, sustainable and fresh food! He also does a great job of explaining the ingredients and walking thru the whole process. Not only do our veterans get to enjoy a great meal, but learn a few things as well! We are nurturing mental health, emotional health, physical health and spiritual health.
Steve and Willie watch as Bear makes the final preparations.
Bear showing off the venison roast bone broth stew.
Camping at Foolhardy Hill allows us the opportunity to provide these meals as a part of our Freshwater fly fishing F.I.T. program. More time spent together and in the outdoors allows veterans to connect with themselves, each other and nature. On top on that have a full belly and a cozy place to sleep!
The following describes a few meals that Bear prepared for our group last weekend:
The first meal shared together on Friday evening - Venison roast bone broth stew.
Bear started earlier in the week, on Tuesday, a venison bone broth cooked for 36 hours. Then on Friday finished it off by browning venison in hot pan with bear fat, salt, wild leek, pepper, wild leek soy sauce, and worcestershire sauce. Venison roast then went into the crock pot with bone broth for 6-8 hours. Then when venison is falling off the bone add celery, celery root, parsnip, sweet potato, carrot, onions, and garlic. Almost all of these ingredients are from the community supported agriculture (CSA) farm Bear works on. Add some dried herbs from the farm, cook until veggies are soft and enjoy!!
A side of wild asparagus and wild leeks, add bear fat and salt over the fire in a cast iron frying pan. And gluten free cornbread cooked in a Dutch oven surrounded by coals in the fire; substitute bear fat instead of butter and oil - 20 min.
Finished off by a drizzle of warm maple syrup tapped by Bear and processed with love.
Saturday's dinner - Wild game smorgasbord
Steve provided wild turkey breast that his son had harvested earlier this year.
Wild turkey breast - mustard, wild leek soy paste, soy sauce, salt pepper, sesame, dried ginger, fresh garlic, fresh shallots, cut up turkey breast and mix. Put the turkey on bamboo shish kabob skewers added sweet peppers and cooked over the fire.
Moose meatballs
1 lb. of ground moose meat.
Chopped up wild leeks and mixed them into a form of meatloaf with moose meat wild leek soy sauce pesto.
Fire baked wild leek poached rainbow trout (caught that day) - stuffed and wrapped in wild leeks.
Steve and Willie relaxing after a nice day on the river.
"I just wanted to let you know that it was a great trip. Bear made some amazing meals and the camping was really not camping, the facilities at foolhardy campground were fantastic.
Willie was a great guy to talk about my wife with and it really felt good to talk about her and the relationship that we had with each other, so I could never thank Rifles to Rods enough for that." - Steve S.
"This food looks amazing. Knowing it was made with intent to enjoy among great people gives meaning to comfort food in definition. Keep up the great work you guys are doing." - Kevin L.
“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.” - Anthony Bourdain
