Outdoor chef extraordinaire rises bright and early to bring Trail Karma into Southern Arizona’s rugged Santa Catalina Mountains. Utilizing a 2025 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, Garcia refuels some of the Ìęfinest crews with a steaming gourmet surprise at an impromptu trailhead breakfast. The hearty early-morning surprise kicks off some needed maintenance efforts on the Arizona National Scenic Trail.

Click to learn more about Trail Karma, with , launching on our partner mapping platform now with Toyota’s sponsorship of 20 standout trails across the U.S.—matching donations to these key trail-maintenance organizations up to $100K.

Join the cause, donate and discover classic trails (and open new ones) by supporting the local nonprofits that care for these crucial corridors.

For generations, Toyota has built durable legends destined for greatness. Whether you’re conquering off-road trails, hauling heavy loads,Ìę or seeking the versatility of an SUV, there’s that’s just right for you.

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In of The Road Less Eaten, chef and host Biju Thomas visits Utah’s Heber Valley, an unassuming corner of the western U.S. that has seen an explosion in its food scene over the course of the last ten years. While in the Heber Valley, Thomas spends the majority of his time in Midway, Utah, a town on the Eastern flank of the Wasatch Mountains, about an hour away from Salt Lake City and a stone’s throw from Park City.

Thomas tells viewers that local farming and great ingredients have made the Heber Valley a quiet food mecca with a vibrant culinary scene that can hold its own against other, more well-known food destinations. With farms and ranches dotting the landscape, and local bakeries and restaurants that understand the value of locally sourced ingredients, the Heber Valley is filled with dining destinations for visitors to explore after a day hitting the slopes or adventuring in the outdoors.

 

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Hawk and Sparrow Bakery

Thomas starts his journey through the Heber Valley food scene at , which is an organic, artisan bakery located in baker Andrew Berthrong’s home garage in Midway, Utah, that Thomas says produces some of the best bread in Utah. Hawk and Sparrow is known for its sourdough, which is a staple in Heber Valley restaurants that aim to showcase local ingredients and artisan products. Thomas describes Berthrong, a former academic, as “one of the best bakers in the country.”

Viewers watch as Thomas and Berthrong sample the popular sourdough, which takes a multi-day process to create. As they slather the bread with butter, Thomas remarks on the beauty and simplicity of freshly baked bread that’s made with just a few ingredients because it really has nothing to get in the way of its flavor.

 

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Lola’s Street Kitchen

From Hawk and Sparrow, Thomas ventures onto , a former food truck that now has a brick-and-mortar location in Midway, Utah. Owned and operated by David and Mandy Medina, Lola’s makes all of their own breads, buns, and pitas in addition to using some of the sourdough from Hawk and Sparrow. The Medinas envisioned the restaurant as showcasing the best of American street food, all made from scratch.

One of the highlights of Thomas’ visit to Lola’s includes a rundown of their three most popular items: the fried chicken sandwich on freshly baked potato roll, lamb gyro on handmade pita, and a portobello truffle melt on Hawk and Sparrow’s sourdough. Thomas describes Lola’s as approachable and affordable with beautiful dishes but without any fussiness or stuffiness.

Heber Valley Artisan Cheese

After his ride on the local “Heber Creeper” train, Thomas takes viewers to the fourth-generation family-owned dairy farm and shop. Thomas describes the dairy—and its owner and operator Russ Kohler—as embodying the ethics of the region. At Heber Valley Artisan Cheese, they do it all; they grow the hay that feeds the cows, and they raise the herd that produces the milk that turns into some of the world’s finest cheese.

And Thomas isn’t exaggerating. Heber Valley Artisan Cheese won a gold medal at the World Cheese Awards for its Lemon Sage Cheddar, and its Wasatch Back Jack is a National Champion. A highlight for Thomas comes when he gets to taste both prize winners. As he samples the cheddar, Thomas remarks that the cheese is actually “more buttery than cheesy,” which Kohler explains is a result of the cows’ diet. Because corn doesn’t grow at elevation, the Heber Valley Artisan Cheese herd has an alfalfa-based diet. Alfalfa diets create a richer, creamier texture in the cheese.

 

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Midway Mercantile

Chef John Platt then gives Thomas a tour and tasting at his upscale Midway, Utah, eatery . A former teacher and principal, Platt moved to Midway nearly two decades ago, drawn by the Heber Valley’s beauty.

While at Midway Mercantile, Thomas gets to sample their panko-crusted Alaskan Halibut, which is Midway Mercantile’s most popular dish. The fish is panko crusted in yellow curry, served with coconut rice and spinach, and topped with apple chutney. Thomas loves the dish—particularly the apple chutney. Thomas also gets to taste Sandra’s Classic Salad, a salad named after Platt’s wife and composed of greens, herbs, lemon vinaigrette, truffle oil, and grilled Juustoleipa cheese. Juustoleipa is a Finnish bread cheese that really has its flavors come out when grilled.

 

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Ritual Chocolate

Thomas finishes his exploration of the Heber Valley at , where Anna Seear has perfected small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate from ethically sourced heirloom cacao. Thomas notes that he and Seear actually both started their careers in the Boulder, Colorado, food scene.

After walking through the artisanal process Seear uses to create Ritual’s finely crafted chocolate, Thomas enjoys tasting Ritual’s unique, single-origin drinking chocolates, which are made from half hot water and half chocolate. After drinking both the Madagascar and the Ecuador, Thomas notes the cinnamon-y flavor and richness of the Ecuador, while the Madagascar has a brighter flavor.

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It’s not that I don’t like food. I do. I carry frozen cheesecakes on winter expeditions. They’re caloric and they don’t freeze hard, so you can bite off chunks without chipping your teeth. I once ate the same dead catfish boiled over a fire for three days. Was it good? Absolutely not. I like cardamom, snap peas, and Asian pears. I eat frozen bean burritos. I hate raw tomatoes, a trait I attribute to growing up near a ketchup factory in California. Tomatoes festered on every street corner and stuck to the soles of my flip-flops. They rolled off trucks en route to the factory, then rotted in the sun.

My husband, on the other hand, was raised by an epicurean grandfather, driving hours one-way for frog legs, bouillabasse, a pastry shaped like a bird’s nest. We have twin babies now. He wants them to appreciate good food, so he’s learning to cook. In pursuit of this goal, he discovered the , a remote bed and breakfast in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where superstar chef Lane Regan (formerly Iliana) cooks foraged ingredients for a handful of guests in exclusive weekends that sell out years in advance. This year, my husband’s been helping out at the Inn, building a woodshed and tending colonies of bees. He’s developed a new language, dropping words like “garum” and fermenting wild plums on the top shelf of our closet. In exchange for his work, Lane offered us a slot on a last-minute November weekend—and my husband, excited to share a place he loves, gave the slot to me.

The Inn lies about a mile from two-lane Highway 13 as the crow flies, and 25 miles by unmarked dirt road. Guests caravan. It’s a log cabin with a central parlor that’s half kitchen, adorned with Pendleton blankets, paintings of foxes, and Chef’s three Michelin stars. Tonight’s dinner is not the star of the weekend—that would be Saturday’s 15-course tasting menu—but as guests gather around the three small tables, it’s clearly no less anticipated. I scoot in at the corner table with two couples, dodging a silky lump that reveals itself to be a Shih Tzu named Clemmie. George, a nine-year-old Newfoundland, sprawls like a bear rug by the hearth.

Host Rebecca, a breezy redhead with pigtails and an expression of warm concern, brings dishes of savoy cabbage with pine flower miso and milkweed flower vinegar that have my tablemates gasping. It’s meaty, complex, and—to my inexperienced palate—ineffable. I feel like a phony for eating it without the knowledge to name the tastes. Like wild mushrooms, I think, tentative even in my mind—and when a neighbor mentions the same, I feel a sprig of confidence. By the bread course, a thick warm sourdough with tangy goat milk butter and honey, I find myself relaxing. The trout in herb gribiche is fleshy and tastes like lake in the best way, and dessert—a profiterole with spruce ice cream and chaga cookie top that cracks into patches like the spots on an amanita—offers an almost musical experience of bliss.

By the time guests sigh and lean back, the woods outside the windows are black. The nearest neighbors are more than a howl’s reach away. Rebecca did a 12-day silent retreat “in order to be able to work here—because one struggles with one’s mind,” she remarks of the Inn’s isolation, gliding to the table with postprandial tea. A guest inquires if she has any decaf coffee. “No the fuck we do not,” she says.

I sleep outside by choice, full-bellied in two sleeping bags, and wake to daylight in a shell of ice.

By first breakfast—banana-walnut bread with salt and butter—the guests are familiar with each other. They’re midwestern, foodies, adventurous—two retired couples, a pair of restaurant owners, and a data scientist and millennial geriatrician from Madison, Wisconsin. Chef Lane bustles in the kitchen, answering questions and offering guidance on the wood-fired sauna. They’re slim and soft-spoken, with a teal moth tattooed on their neck, wings filling the open collar of their tucked-in wool flannel. In a minute they stir, scoop, plate, taste, give hiking suggestions, and brush Shih Tzu Clemmie’s eyebrows up with their hand, securing them with plastic barrettes. Second breakfast is tacos on green tortillas, tinged with weeds picked that week.

The day is food and leisure; some folks wander to the Sturgeon River, descending a trailless slope, while others knit, hike, or read. I sit briefly in the loft, overhearing snippets of conversation. “One time I got stung by a hornet on my butt cheek and [redacted] sucked all the venom out of me,” someone remarks. “That was the most romantic thing he’s ever done.” Later, thoughtful: “My tapeworm’s the only one who understands me.”

When guests stay too long in the sauna, Lane worries. “Do you think they passed out?” they murmur. “Maybe they’re cooking.”

Lane says that guests at Milkweed fall on a spectrum: on one extreme, foodies who rarely step outdoors, and at the other, outdoorsfolk who—like myself—“have never even had a tasting menu.” It’s Milkweed that brings them together.

As an adventurer, I’m often in the position of enticing people outside, and it can be a hard sell. Not because the highs aren’t great, but because folks fear the lows: bugs, cold, bears, isolation, toilet paper made of leaves. And yet here’s Milkweed, pulling magic: calling new people into the Northwoods, not in spite of discomfort, but for pursuit of pleasure alone.

Lunch starts with a salad of fennel and carrot two ways (shaved raw, and blanched and marinated in lemon), moose garum and egg white aminos with marinated white beans and garnished with chamomile. The flavor is multisensory, euphoric; I feel it in my arms. Something’s sweet on my tongue, and tart on the sides of my mouth, and there’s a tinge of smoke, too, which surprises me.

“We fed the moose firewood,” says cooking resident Jade. She’s joking, but she might as well not be, because I swear it’s all there: the soil, the rain, the antlers, the trees. And when it hits me, I almost laugh from the revelation: foraged food isn’t just about bringing people into wildness. It’s about bringing wildness into our very mouths.

We can—we do—have nature inside us, even in the most conservative sense of the word: wilderness as nonhuman, nature as beyond control. What’s a tapeworm if not a reminder that our bodies are ecosystems, too? But this place, this cooking, this food—it turns fear into pleasure. Savoring a wild lion’s mane mushroom is no less an engagement with wildness than spotting one in the woods, and it is—in a tactile way—more accessible to most.

I’m not proud to realize that my lack of engagement with good food was, in minuscule part, because I thought myself above it. Because, while I savor comfort, I’ve always prided myself on enduring its lack, and I have in me some Puritan sense that suffering for a goal gives you greater pride. I have struggled in my life to let myself be purely content, and maybe food represents that: it turns a need into a gift. I’ve spent decades chasing wilderness, when it could always be right here: on my plate, in my mouth, in the animal body that I am.

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I used to have a recurring dream in which I’m sitting on my mat awaiting instructions from a panel of my yoga teachers. I’m at an Iyengar yoga assessment, for which I’m completely unprepared. And I am terrified. After what seems like an eternity, they tell me my task: I’m to carve a Thanksgiving turkey right there on my mat using the props in front of me—a plastic fork and knife.

It’s possible that I had some anxiety about cooking holiday dinner.

From My Fondest Memory to the Fear of Failure

I can still smell my mother’s kitchen on Thanksgiving morning. The fragrance of her homemade pies mixed with the aroma of the turkey roasting in the oven created an air of anticipation that could be felt throughout the house. My sister and I would watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV in our pajamas and would periodically be called into the kitchen to help my mother stir a pot or lick a bowl. The whole day was spent waiting for the moment we were called to the table. By the time dinner was ready, we were practically giddy as we loaded our plates with my mother’s delicious food in the most anticipated meal of the year.

Now that the torch of cooking the family’s holiday dinner has passed to me, my anticipation has morphed into recurring anxiety about living up to my memory of all those Thanksgivings past. One year, the turkey wasn’t fully cooked, the side dishes were cold, and I sat at the table feeling totally defeated. The pressure to replicate the magic of my childhood memories combined with the fear of failing turns out to be the perfect recipe for a really bad time.

Whether in the kitchen or on the yoga mat, fear is like a big bucket of ice dumped on the spark of adventure. Fear leaves us either too much in our own heads to access our inherent creativity and intuition—or so paralyzed that we convince ourselves we’re not even capable of trying. Fear seduces us into a place of complacency, inviting us to avoid what scares us in favor of dwelling in the comfort of our familiar beliefs. Fear prevents us from making mistakes and gaining the kind of wisdom that only comes from taking risks.

How Yoga Transformed My Holiday Stress

Patanjali’s classic text, the , offers several tools to help manage fear. Foremost among them are the principles of practice and . Practice, as outlined in Sutra 1.14, includes three aspects: We must practice for a long time, without break, and in all earnestness. This last one means we have to believe what we’re practicing is actually possible.

Sutras 1.15 and 1.16 describe detachment, which essentially means that our identities are not dependent on our successes or failures. This knowledge leads to freedom and a very real connection to the .

Practicing—continuously showing up in the face of real or potential failure—is trusting that the process is the goal. Ultimately, it’s the intention behind my cooking, the effort I’ve devoted to the meal, and the heart I’ve poured into each dish that will make the meal a success.

Even a botched attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner is an opportunity to practice detachment. One year, my apple pie fell apart and I had no backup plan and a table full of guests awaiting dessert. I had to let go of my original plan and quickly adapt to the new situation. So I decided to scoop out the apple filling and spoon it over some vanilla ice cream. No one knew the difference; in fact, it was a huge hit!

It’s often when things have fallen apart that I’ve realized just how much I limited myself with my own expectations. ÌęIt’s often in those moments that you get to know your own resilience and experience a true connection to the moment. Opening myself up to life often results in something greater than I could have imagined. And some of my best memories are of times when nothing went according to plan—when I was forced to surrender.

How to Make Thanksgiving Less Stressful

Once I remembered that the truth of who I am does not depend on my producing a flawless meal, I felt more at ease. Now I know how to overcome holiday stress because I’ve realized the ways that being in the kitchen cooking dinner is a lot like showing up on the yoga mat.

1. Connect With Your Inner State

Bring your yoga practice into the kitchen by tuning into how you feel as you create your Thanksgiving menu. Anxiety, doubt, and fear can all be felt in the body and are signs that you need to reevaluate your approach. Focus your attention on the process of executing what you can manage to the best of your abilities.

Taking risks in the kitchen is about listening to the motivations that drive your efforts. If I’m considering a challenging recipe, such as an apple pie with pastry made from scratch, and I can feel myself getting excited about the process, I go for it. I know that no matter how it turns out, it will have been worth it because it was my commitment to the adventure, not the result, that inspired me to be daring in the first place.

If, on the other hand, I stare at the recipe with a sense of dread or expectation, or if I’m hoping that the finished product will prove something to myself or to others, then I know that no matter how it turns out, I will not enjoy the fruits of my efforts.

2. Focus on the Journey—Not the Outcome

When you can’t do a challenging pose in yoga, the practice is to focus on and appreciate what you can do. Flailing toward an end result will get you nowhere. And if you somehow arrive at the “end goal” by doing so, you will have missed the point because you weren’t connected to yourself in the process.

It matters how you feel during a yoga practice—not what you look like. Cooking is the same: A dish’s value lies in how it was created.

3. You’re Allowed to Change Your Mind

Let go of your expectation that you need to whip up elaborate food just because it’s Thanksgiving. Really. This mindset can free you from the pitfalls of self-inflicted suffering.

It’s perfectly okay to opt out of a challenging recipe if it doesn’t feel right. I’ve learned over the years to ease up on myself by swapping out difficult, time-consuming recipes for simple, foolproof ones, such as incredible, crispy roasted brussel sprouts with maple syrup and balsamic vinegar. (They take about five minutes to prepare before I pop them in the oven.)

4. Follow Your Intuition

Cooking, like yoga, is about connecting to yourself in the moment. Pose cues such as “stand equally on all four corners of your feet” are useful only when you can feel them in your own body. Similarly, a recipe is only a guideline. Great cooking happens when you listen to your gut, trust your instincts, and make the recipe your own. Follow the instructions as a starting point, but allow yourself to experiment, play, and have fun.

I’m not nervous anymore because now I know how to make Thanksgiving less stressful. No matter how the meal turns out, the people who matter most in my life will celebrate the love and effort I put into our shared experience. What I’ll remember most is the attitude I chose to bring to the kitchen and the wisdom I’ll gain from letting go.

This article has been updated. Originally published October 2, 2013.

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In the of The Road Less Eaten,Ìęseason two, chef, author, and show host, Biju Thomas, visits the south shore of Lake Tahoe, California. He and snowboarder Hannah Teter explore the lake by boat and clear kayak before Thomas tries some of the best food this outdoorsy paradise has to offer.

Here are the highlights of Thomas’s stops on The Road Less Eaten: Lake Tahoe.

Azul Latin Kitchen

blends South and Central American cuisine with influences from all over the world, includingÌęThailand and India. The South Tahoe restaurant is also known for its fresh-squeezed margaritas.

In the show, Thomas works with chef and manager Jeff McWilliams to cook up some steak fajitas, complete with vegetables and a secret sauce. The secret sauce, McWilliams shares, is a blend of tamari, Worcester sauce, lime juice, and a mix of spices. Thomas also samples a dish called tacos three ways that features a fish taco made up of battered cod with lemon and pickled red onion. Then, there’s the Thai curry taco, which consists of slow-cooked chicken with red curry, pickled mango, and candied jalapeños and Fresnos. The dish also comes with a vegetarian option: a sweet potato and black bean taco with chipotle slaw.

Toulouse

Next, Thomas heads to , a CajunÌęrestaurant also located on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. It was founded by four friends who met on Toulouse Street in New Orleans more than 30 years ago. The friends chose Lake Tahoe because many of them are big skiers and they wanted to be closer to the mountains.

Thomas samples a variety of dishes during his visit, including the house salad, shrimp and grits with mushrooms and tasso ham, and the blackened ahi tuna, which gets a kick from the Japanese seasoning yuzu kosho. Many items on the menu are made from local and sustainable ingredients.

Desolation Hotel, Maggie’s

Named for the nearby Desolation Wilderness, the micro hotel is themed around outdoor exploration. Maggie’s, the connected restaurant, is named after Maggie McPeaks, one of the first women to explore the Sierra mountains. The staff of uses seasonal ingredients, which keeps the menu fresh and ever-evolving.

±őČÔÌęThe Road Less Eaten,ÌęThomas tries the New York strip, which comes with a side of asparagus stuffed with goat cheese and fondant potatoes. Also on the menu: the Sacramento rack of lamb, with crispy, roasted potatoes and roasted baby carrots with an orange glaze. Thomas also samples the Spanish octopus with a cucumber salad and edible orchid.

Elements Eatery and Bar

For breakfast, Thomas visits , a newer restaurant in the area. Elements infuses diner classics with a Latin flavor. Thomas samples the eggs Benedict, with marinated adobo-style pork, house-mashed avocado, and an heirloom tomato on charred English muffins, served with lard-fried tater tots. The entire dish is topped with their hollandaise sauce, which has an acidic base of cutÌęgreen salsa.

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At the end of August I get the call. “The apricots are ready,” my mom says excitedly. I grab a few buckets, jump in my car, and drive the 100 or so miles from my home in Dillon, Colorado, to her place in Carbondale. We pile into her Subaru and wind a bit higher into the slopes above the Roaring Fork Valley. We wave as we pass our friends’ house, then park below their orchard, a century-old stand of apricot trees that sits at 6,500 feet.

The 50 trees here are old, and time has gnarled their branches. A weathered wooden ladder reaches into the canopy; the perfumed air reminds us of the jam making and baking that will (happily) occupy our time in the week ahead.

These days, grocery stores sell firm apricots the size of golf balls, but the soft, ripe fruit in these trees are the diameter of a quarter. It takes a while to fill a bucket, but the intense flavors are worth it. Other scavengers are around—birds, deer, even bears—and we give them plenty of space.

This orchard, which contains several apricot varieties, is believed to date back to 1915, and being here makes me think about the people who planted it, and what the trees have endured. Surely, there have been periods of extended drought and extreme cold, and yet, year after year, they continue to bring forth treasures.

“Fruit trees watch several generations go by,” says Michael Thompson, who, along with Jerome Osentowski, cofounded an organization called the , a nonprofit that maps and catalogs ancient specimens like these all over the valley.

Great old trees are not unique to Colorado or the West, of course. They dot the nation, languishing in plain sight in forgotten corners of cities and towns, and across rolling farmland. But in recent years—spurred by a renewed interest in things with rich stories and heritage behind them—there’s been a movement not just to save old trees but to propagate them for the future.

In New York City, Sam Van Aken, an artist turned farmer, planted a permanent heirloom “exhibition” on Governors Island called . The public site opened in 2022; the 102 specimens it comprises are grafted from trees—apricots, apples, pears, persimmons, cherries, and others—that once thrived across the city’s five boroughs. In total, they represent about 400 years of local agriculture.

Although most Americans get by with the fruit they find piled in grocery bins, that represents only the tiniest slice of what once freely bloomed. Take the apple. Our commercial, homogenized food system promotes varieties like the crisp but boring Fuji and Granny Smith because they are easily grown, universally accepted, and hardy enough to transport and store.

“There were once thousands of cultivated apple varieties, and now we’re down to hundreds,” says Vanessa Harmony, a tree propagator and the owner of Colorado Edible Forest in Glenwood Springs, which works in tandem with the Heritage Fruit Tree Project. “There are so many delicious fruits that could be lost if they’re not found,” she says.

That’s the role of organizations like ; Washington State University’s MyFruitTree, which works only with apples; and regional entities like Thompson’s Heritage Fruit Tree Project. Indexing each heirloom’s type, location, approximate age, fruit characteristics, and site history culminates in a written log and map of agricultural diversity. This information helps when experts are grafting clones to ensure that varieties aren’t lost to time.

Like Open Orchard in New York, Harmony, Thompson, and Osentowski have had a hand in creating a research site filled with fruit trees. The parcel, established in 2020, sits within an old orchard in Emma, Colorado, outside Basalt. It’s open to the public and will eventually feature informational placards, so visitors know what they’re looking at. Harmony helps maintain the old trees and the newly planted clones gathered from around the valley. “It’s become a living library for me,” she says.

Observing the trees through the seasons means Harmony can identify desired qualities—whether it’s the best-tasting fruit, tree hardiness, or something else. She can also send leaf samples out for genetic testing to determine exactly what kind of tree she’s dealing with. Sometimes that information yields an entirely new variety—or, rather, one so old that no one around today knew about it.

Thompson enlisted Harmony’s help with his favorite: a grand old apple tree he affectionately calls Mo. It was planted in 1910 and produces what Thompson considers the best apple he’s ever found for pie making. In recent years, this magnificent tree has suffered from blight, and even with thoughtful pruning its future is in question. Harmony has already grafted multiple clones from healthy parts of the tree. Those “Mini Mos”—two of which are planted in Thompson’s daughter’s backyard in Oregon, and two of which are doing well at Harmony’s nursery—are the next generation. “The tree will live on,” he says.

As for the apricots that leave my mom’s and my hands sticky with juice, our friends have largely let nature take its course. In the thirtyish years they have owned the property, Susy Ellison says they’ve had the orchard pruned only a couple of times. The trees, she tells me, seem to like being left alone. “You don’t want to fuss with them too much,” she explains, adding that they’ve been cataloged by the Heritage Fruit Tree Project.

We gather our buckets and load them into the car. As soon as we close the doors, we’re enveloped by the thick and heady scent of apricots. We wave again as we pass the house and drive straight to my mom’s. There’s jam to be made.

Fruit Forward: Interest in Heritage Fruit Has Blossomed

Although the Heritage Fruit Tree Project is specific to Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, there are other organizations doing similar work around the country.

The biggest among these is the Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America. The serves as a national database and registry of historic trees and orchards.

Anyone interested in heirloom fruit, especially apples, should sign up for the University of Idaho Heritage Orchard Conference. The free monthly webinars are packed with info on subjects ranging from cider making to tree propagation.

New Yorkers (and those just visiting) can check out Open Orchard on Governors Island, where approximately 100 trees represent the bounty that once grew in the city’s five boroughs.

The and the are based in southwestern and western Colorado, respectively, and focus almost exclusively on apples. Both are intent on saving orchard culture as well as legacy genetics.

Apricot Snack Bars

There are a million and one jam-bar recipes out there, and this is mine—except that I use fresh fruit instead of preserves. The recipe works equally well with fresh and frozen apricots; you can also swap in seasonal berries or peaches and plums. What makes the treats so irresistible is the sweet-tart play of crust and fruit.

Makes about 12 bars

For the Filling:

• 3 cups apricots, halved or
  quartered, depending on size
• ÂŒ cup sugar
• Âœ lemon, juiced
• 2 tsp cornstarch

For the Crust:

• 1Âœ cups flour
• Âœ cup old-fashioned oats
• Âœ cup sugar
• Âœ tsp baking powder
• Âœ tsp salt
• Âœ cup unsalted butter, chilled
• ⅓ cup full-fat plain yogurt

Prepare the filling by combining apricots, sugar, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Set aside and allow to macerate at room temperature. (This step can be done in advance.) If fruit is frozen, allow it to thaw before macerating.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter an eight-inch square baking pan.

Prepare the crust by stirring together flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Cube butter and add to flour mixture. Use your fingers to smear and incorporate the butter into the flour mixture. Add yogurt and stir. The mixture should be dry.

Add about 1œ cups of this crust mixture to the prepared pan, or enough to cover the bottom evenly. Press mixture down with fingers or use the base of a measuring cup until firm. Press a square of parchment paper onto the surface of the crust and then add pie weights (you can also use dried beans or rice). Par-bake for 12 minutes, until set but still soft. Carefully remove parchment and weights.

Stir cornstarch into the apricots. Pour apricot mixture over crust. Sprinkle with remaining crust mixture. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until top is golden brown and fruit is bubbling. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, then cut into squares.

Amanda M. Faison, a writer and editor based in Colorado, is working on her first cookbook.

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“Scarcity fosters creativity,” said chef Aaron Lopez as he placed a small woven basket on my plate. He removed the lid to reveal two amaranth-leaf-topped squares that looked like artisanal chocolates. I lifted one and took a bite. The crĂšme-brĂ»lĂ©e-like shell shattered, releasing a sweet, fibrous, squash-filled interior laced with subtle heat.

It was late June and Lopez, 38, had invited me to his hometown, the inland Southern California city of El Centro, to preview the menu of his ambitious new restaurant, , which pays homage to the deserts of the American Southwest.

The freshly limewashed walls of the dining room were decorated with tumbleweeds gathered from his mom’s backyard and lined with cacti growing in clay pots. In the kitchen, his fridge and pantry were stocked with esoteric ingredients: a cactus glaze, cold pickled desert mallow shrub, prickly pear sambal, bee pollen shoyu, mesquite sap.

Lopez is on a mission to reimagine forgotten desert foods and ignite a sense of pride and possibility around a cuisine largely defined by chiles. Those bite-size squash snacks were created by borrowing from the Indigenous technique of nixtamalization. Traditionally, the process involves steeping and cooking corn in an alkaline solution, which makes it easier to grind into masa for tortillas. Lopez applies a similar method to this dish, soaking the mixture in the solution for two days before cooking it in agave syrup. He then shapes it into squares that are lightly fried to create a paper-thin, sugary crust, and then tops the whole thing with a sticky, fudge-like sauce made from fermented Hatch chiles and squash-seed shio koji, a Japanese marinade. The result was a perfect combination of sweet and savory.

“What drew me to cooking wasn’t a desire to nourish people,” Lopez told me over kombucha he ages in Sonoran clay pots. “I was fascinated with manipulating ingredients, turning something unexpected or unappetizing into something delicious.”

Before he embarked on a career in the kitchen, he was a sculptor and played bass in a punk band. Perhaps it takes the eyes of an artist to see a landscape of sun-scorched earth, spiky plants, petrified forests, and stinging critters as bountiful.

Since leasing the 43-seat restaurant space in January, Lopez and his wife, June Chee, have been hiking, foraging, and camping across the Southwest, including Joshua Tree National Park, 95 miles north. On his journey, Lopez has learned how Native people thrived in these harsh landscapes, relying on drought- and heat-tolerant crops such as chia, with its fiber-rich seeds, and tepary beans, small brown legumes with a chestnut flavor. “I bring foraging guides on what the Pueblo ate and a point-and-shoot camera, and we pull into secluded areas, pluck some ingredients to taste, and scribble field notes,” he said.

The desert is often a punishing place to harvest from. “It can feel like you’re foraging on the sun,” said Lopez. In summer, it’s not unusual for the couple to head out as early as 3:30 in the morning to beat the heat. They bring along their dogs, Lola and Jupiter, to warn of rattlesnakes and chase away tarantulas. Thick gloves are essential; Lopez estimates that he owns two dozen pairs. “I’m constantly shopping for ones that won’t puncture when I’m de-thorning things like prickly pear,” he said. “I’ve almost become immune to the cuts and stab wounds.”

Lopez never imagined he’d return home. As a teenager, he didn’t see a future in El Centro, a gritty city just over two hours east of San Diego in California’s Imperial Valley and 15 miles north of the Mexican border town of Mexicali. “I ran away from the desert as soon as I could,” he said. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Los Angeles in 2012, he spent four years cutting his teeth at some of the city’s top restaurants, notably the Michelin-starred Orsa and Winston, where he helped craft the 25-course tasting menu nightly. He then decamped to Honolulu for six years and made a name for himself pushing flavor boundaries at the now shuttered Heiho House, a high-end gastropub.

But it was during his time in the tropics that Lopez started to feel the tug of the desert. “I’d come back to visit and look at the landscape with a different perspective,” he said. On these trips, he’d speak with foragers and members of local Indigenous communities, and those conversations turned him in a new direction. “I realized my heart was in the desert. I want to show the culinary community that our products can compete with those grown in a more hospitable climate.”

Lopez isn’t the only one exploring the potential of resilient desert flora as ingredients. Scientists think that wild desert plants, such as nitrogen-fixing tree legumes and water-efficient succulents, could be critical to sustainable farming in a hotter, more arid world. Ahead of my trip to Ursa, I called Erin Riordan, a conservation research scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson. She told me that many crops grown in the nation’s deserts—wheat and barley, to name two—aren’t naturally designed to survive in xeric climates, because they didn’t originate there. As weather becomes more extreme, such crops will require more water, chemicals, and electricity to grow.

This is of particular concern in Imperial County, which is the state’s driest and only receives two to three inches of rain each year. The county is allocated the single largest share of water from the Colorado River. But that waterway continues to dry up, forcing the valley’s 400-some farmers to drastically reduce their usage for crops like broccoli, lettuce, and wheat.

In 2020, Riordan coauthored a University of Arizona study that evaluated plants traditionally eaten by the Sonoran Desert’s Indigenous cultures, such as cacti and agaves. “These species are already adapted to arid weather, require less water and energy, and produce more reliable yields,” she told me. “They’re also rich in nutrients and antioxidants.”

Like Lopez, Riordan sees deserts not as wastelands but as laboratories for food. She’s involved in a three-year project funded by the USDA that’s working with Arizona farmers to identify hardy, desert-adapted crops, promote climate-smart farming practices, and raise consumer awareness. She believes that chefs like Lopez can help influence the appeal of these foods. “Farmers are wary of switching to desert crops, because they don’t know if they’ll be able to move the product,” she said. “We have to expand the palate of the general public to build a market.”

Back at Ursa, named for the constellation, Lopez excitedly showed me a space he’s building as a kind of lab dedicated to exploring the terroir of the Great Basin and the Mojave, Chihuahuan, and Sonoran Deserts. His inspirations: star Nordic chef RenĂ© Redzepi’s forthcoming Copenhagen food lab and acclaimed Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez’s research center in Lima, which employs a team of sociologists, botanists, and anthropologists to study native ingredients.

Lopez is in the process of hiring a director to research recipes and techniques used by Indigenous communities. When the lab is completed early next year, the two of them will meet with the restaurant’s network of foragers, then test ingredients and develop recipes that address culinary questions like: What happens when you dehydrate lamb’s-quarters (an edible weed)? Can you age, brine, and lightly cold-smoke barrel cactus seeds to emulate caviar?

Lopez has also sought out wisdom from Indigenous communities. On a series of R&D trips, he met with members of Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Nation, who introduced him to the prized buds of the cholla cactus, which bloom each spring. Lopez cooks the buds sous vide in a mushroom brine, dries them, and then shaves them like truffles to add an earthy punch to dishes.

Ramona Button, the proprietor of Ramona Farms on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona, has become Lopez’s fixer for a finely stone-ground, cob-roasted Pima corn known as Č”Čč’i±čČőČč, a dying ingredient he hopes to revitalize. For my meal, he turned it into comforting, nutty grits, topped with sour corn, corn pudding, and fall-off-your-fork corned antelope, his twist on corned beef.

Lopez has adopted the zero-waste mentality long embraced by Native communities, too. He steeps the pods of the ironwood tree, for example, to make tea, and he turns scraps of wild boar into an umami-rich fermented garum, a riff on fish sauce. My favorite example of whole-ingredient cooking was a flan-like dessert crafted from all four parts of mesquite, a food so important to the Tohono O’odham that they once had a lunar-calendar month dedicated to it.

My meal complete, we walked outside to Main Street, where the temperature had soared to a withering 114 degrees. Lopez wanted to show me downtown, although, he admitted, “There isn’t much to see.” (The man at the rental-car counter in San Diego concurred. When I told him I was driving to El Centro, he incredulously asked, “Why?”)

I asked Lopez if he thought his hometown—where one-fifth of the population lives in poverty—is ready for a fine-dining concept. He scratched his scraggly brown beard as his pale blue eyes gazed toward a dilapidated storefront. “We have to be accessible for the locals to trust us,” he replied, and acknowledged that he’s abandoned his original tasting-menu concept. Instead, the restaurant offers a menu of 15 sharable items priced between $6 and $22 per dish, served to a funky soundtrack of disco, hip-hop, and soul.

“Do I have dreams of Michelin coming to our town one day? Sure,” he admitted. “But I care more about making our community—and all desert people—proud of the foods that shape our identity. That’s how I define success. And like most things in the desert, you just need to work a little harder for it.”

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The second season of The Road Less Eaten, , premiered this month. In the first episode, chef, author, and show host,ÌęBiju Thomas,Ìęvisits Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama. This coastal town right on the Gulf of Mexico is in line with the show’s mission to visit destinations people don’t typically classify as outdoorsy and peel back the layers of culture, food, and outdoor adventure in each place.

Here are the highlights of Thomas’s stops on The Road Less Eaten’sÌęfirst episode of the second season.

Zeke’s Landing and Marina

Like much of Gulf Shores, Zeke’s landing and Marina was rebuilt after 2020 Hurricane Sally destroyed many homes and establishments in the area. Now both a new marina and restaurant, is a favorite stop for locals and tourists alike. Being right on the water, Zeke’s Restaurant puts the spotlight on simply prepared, incredibly fresh fish.

±őČÔÌęThe Road Less Eaten,ÌęThomas goes out fishing on a boat called the Extreme ChaosÌęto catch his own meal. Within minutes, he reels in a classic: a red snapper.

“Red snapper are known for their firm texture and sweet and mild flavor,”ÌęThomas says on the show. “These fish are a Gulf Coast delicacy, and are incredibly versatile: grilled or fried.”

After Thomas finishes his fresh catch, ChefÌęRicky Brenlow prepares another popular item: pan-seared scallops with white wine over cheesy grits. Thomas enjoys the simple preparation of the seared scallops with the southern nod of the cheesy grits, commenting on how well the flavors all blend together.

Hog Wild Beach and BBQ

The next stop on Thomas’sÌęGulf Shores visit is to , a classic southern barbecue restaurant owned by Caitlin and TJ Allen. Hog Wild, housed in a historic building—one of the oldest in the area—specializes in good old southern smoked barbecue.

During his visit, the Allens serve Thomas their staple, the Nasty G. The Nasty G is a slider stacked high with a mix of ingredients: pulled-pork, pulled chicken, chopped ribs, local hand-battered buffalo shrimp, and coleslaw with Alabama white barbecue sauce on top. For those who haven’t heard of white barbecue sauce (Thomas hadn’t either), it’s a mayonnaise-based dressing that often packs a bit of heat from horseradish or cayenne pepper, sometimes a mix of both.

Thomas’sÌęverdict on the Nasty G? “It was perfectly balanced,” he says. “And the bread is perfect for this.”

And even though we don’t see the dish on the episode, Thomas makes sure to adviseÌęviewers to leave room from Hog Wild’s banana pudding.

Gulf State Park

Located right on the water, features 6,500 acres of protected land. The area was hit hard when the Deepwater Horizon disaster sent 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf in 2010. A mix of private and public funding, some of it from the settlement that followed the disaster, led to the restoration of the park.

Gulf State Park features a total of 24 miles of trail for hikers, runners, and cyclists. It also offers access to free bikes within the park that you can rent for a ride. There’s also something called the learning campus, where park employees offer tours and various classes to educate visitors on different creatures and water systems within the park.

, located in the middle of the park, is known as Gulf Shore’s hidden gem. Chef Mike Jorke’s goal, says Thomas, is for Woodside to “move away from the standard beach town fair and embrace fresh, local ingredients, prepared in light and surprising ways.”

In line with this lighter, fresh approach, onÌęThe Road Less Eaten,ÌęThomas samples chili-rubbed mahi on top of crispy Brussels sprouts and quinoa. Woodside even has a neighboring chef’s garden to allow for a true farm-to-table experience.

Along with an elevated menu, Woodside offers live music and a plethora of games, including Jenga, table tennis, and corn hole.

Yoho Rum and Tacos

For his last stop, Thomas visits a casual and friendly taco bar, in Orange Beach, where he samples a series of cocktails and tacos. The cocktail master stirls up the classic Yoho rum punch, a rum cocktail with a mix of pineapple, mango, strawberry flavors, for Thomas. Thomas then samples a flight of tacos, including a ginger peanut, firecracker shrimp, Chimichurri steak, and fried chicken taco.

For the grand finale, Yoho’s staff brings out its famous Mexican Pizza, fried flour tortillas piled high with salsa, cheese, sour cream, peppers, chicken or beef, and black olives. After Thomas tries a bite, he says with a smile, “that tastes like every taco you had in grade school.”

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Is your backyard littered with dead plants and forgotten dreams? Do you couch rot while scrolling videos from Ballerina Farm? Are you a millennial grappling with the inevitable transition from van-life dirtbag to homeowner in the ’burbs? You need a little low-key, lazy gardening in your life.

USDA Zones 101

A quick education on your local growing conditions is the backbone of lazy gardening. First, you need to figure out what zone you live in—as in . This map calculates each region’s average annual extreme low winter temperatures and sets the baseline for understanding what types of plants grow best in your area.

Identifying your hardiness zone is as easy as entering your zip code, and it’s the most important guiding information for gardening. After you know your zone, check plant tags at your local nursery or big-box store to make sure what you buy has a good shot at growing where you live. If you know any gardeners, ask them for their best crop recommendations. Every region has different sun, soil, water, and growing conditions, so your community can offer invaluable guidance. Where I live on aÌęhomestead in Salt Lake City, Utah, blackberries and raspberries grow like weeds, but due to the low acidity in our dirt, blueberries don’t stand a chance unless you become a hardcore soil chemistry hobbyist. So, as a fellow lazy gardener, I grow blackberries and raspberries.

Seeds Versus Seedlings

Forget starting seeds, buy the seedlings. Listen, you don’t need to grow your tomato from seed in order to boast the joys of homegrown tomatoes—you can buy already thriving plants and just stick them right in the ground.

Growing from seeds may seem like a cheaper path, but when you factor in soil and supplies, the meticulous daily watering schedule, and figuring out supplemental lighting and a dedicated space, and managing the timing of it all, it might be easier and more affordable to just bypass straight to baby plants.ÌęFor perspective, I begin my seed starting in early March, and my plants don’t go into the ground until mid-May, after nearly three months of daily care for hundreds of little needy seedlingsÌęliving in my basement. That is the antithesis of lazy gardening.

Plus, let’s do some quick math: a packet of honey drop cherry tomato seeds might run you $2.99 (just seeds, not including lights, water, soil, container), while a single honey drop cherry tomato seedling from the Wasatch Community Gardens plant sale cost me $4.00.

Spare yourself the seasonal part-time job and check out local seedling sales in the spring, or visit local garden centers any time of the season. My go-to in Salt Lake City is the annual Wasatch Community Gardens (WGC) plant sale. WCG Executive Director Georgina Griffith-Yates recommends seedlings over seed starting for new or low-key gardeners.

“Our Plant Sale sees anywhere from 3,500 to 5,000 community members who want to support local programming and enjoy low cost, USDA-certified organic plant babies—as we lovingly call them,” said Griffith-Yates when I asked her to explain why the plant sale is so important. “WCG’s Job Training Program offers women facing homelessness the opportunity to work a paid position on WCG’s beautiful urban farm in Salt Lake while working toward stable housing and employment. Each spring these women, along with staff and volunteers, grow over 40,000 veggie, fruit, and herb seedlings that we sell at our annual Spring Plant Sale, so you can skip seed starting and dive straight into garden season.”

But even if you don’t live in the Salt Lake area, there’s likely a great place to buy seedlings in your area. As a starting point, check with your local nursery or farmer’s market.

Easy Plants for Beginners and Lazy Gardeners

No matter what you’re growing, healthy soil is the key to happy, low maintenance plants. Grab a few bags of gardening soil to add to your plant’s new home, and for bonus points you can bury your seedlings with a handful of earthworm castings tossed in for extra nutrients. If you add mulch around your garden, it will help retain moisture.

Here are my favorite easy-to-grow plants that I always keep in my garden.

Annuals

Annuals are seasonal plants that you start from scratch every spring. They die every winter after the first frost. One handy trick I use with annuals is planting ones that will reseed themselves. I have many patches of my property that are technically annuals, but reappear every year without additional work from me. My favorites include calendula, poppies, nasturtium, chard, and delphinium flowers. How do I do it? I simply leave the plants alone to reseed themselves, letting them fully mature and then die, resulting in less garden clean-up.

Tomatoes

Every gardener needs a tomato plant, and cherry varieties are the best for lazy gardeners. They’re easy to grow, and they produce prolifically. For maximum tomato with minimum effort, check out Supersweet 100, Sungolds, and Gold Nugget varieties. Avoid heirloom tomatoes—they’re needier.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six to eight hours per day

Pro tip: Tomatoes do not like wet leaves, so be sure to only water at the base of the plant.

Summer Squash

Squash (think: zucchini) vines can grow huge and produce more vegetables than you’ll know what to do with, which definitely results in a satisfying grow for lackadaisical gardeners.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six to eight hours per day

Green Beans

There are two types of green beans: push and pole beans. Both are easy to grow, though pole beans prefer a trellis, stake, or cage to vine up. If you’re on a budget and don’t want to buy more garden supplies, any tall sturdy object will do. (I’ve used old broom sticks as trellises!) Green beans germinate and mature very quickly, making them an excellent choice to experiment with direct seed starting outside.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six to eight hours per day

Cucumbers

You should always grow food you like to eat, and there are few things more pleasant on a hot summer day than a crisp cucumber. Like green beans, members of the cucurbit family (related to squash) love a trellis, stake, or something to crawl up.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six to eight hours per day

Pro tip: Harvest cucumber when they’re mature but small and tender. Overgrown cucumbers can taste very bitter.

Radish

Few edibles mature as quickly as radishes, and a faster turnaround lessens the time lazy gardeners have to mess things up and accidentally murder a plant.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six to eight hours per day

Garlic

Plant bulbs in autumn, and forget about them. Harvest your haul in early summer, and hang the garlic in your garage for two weeks. Just like that, you’ve got cured garlic to store and eat for months. This year I was eating my own garlic from July until May.

Water: One inch per week

Sun: Full sun, at least six hours per day

Pro tip: In the spring, garlic plants produce a flowering mechanism called a scape. To ensure the biggest garlic head possible, clip the scapes before they fully develop so the plant sends all its energy downward. Bonus: there are tons of out there to try.

Chard and Other Greens

Much like radishes, chard and other greens tend to reach harvest time quickly due to fast maturity. I find growing lettuce greens to be tricky in the heat of Utah, but swiss chard is a hardy green I use in nearly every dish. It tolerates heat better than tender lettuces, and during winter I just throw a frost cloth over the bed and continue to harvest all year long.

Water: One to two inches per week

Sun: Six to eight hours of sun per day (but too much direct sun and heat will burn it)

Perennials

As the opposite of annuals, plants classified as perennials do not die in the winter, making them a great choice for lazy gardening. Plant once, enjoy forever. Perennials need good watering initially to get established, but can be quite hardy against drought conditions—and a little neglect—once settled they’re into the soil. My favorite easy perennials include some of the following.

• Black-eyed Susan: You’ll recognize this classic perennial for its cheerful yellow flowers.
• Lavender: I love a useful perennial. I incorporate lavender into simple syrup and baked goods. Plus, pollinators love it.
• Hummingbird mint: This whimsical flower smells delicious and is a favorite of its namesake, hummingbirds.
• Yarrow: Revered for its medicinal properties, yarrow also has brightly colored flowers that make for excellent dried arrangements.
• Coneflower or echinacea: These big, gorgeous flowers are long lasting and have ancient medicinal uses.
• Blanket flowers: Blanket flowers come in a variety of colors and hue combinations. Plant a few different types to add visual interest to your landscaping.

Always read the tags when you buy a new plant, but the general rule of thumb for perennials is consistent: after planting, water deeply two to three times per week to a depth of one inch for a few weeks until established. Then reduce your watering to once a week to a depth of one inch once the plant is happy in its new home.

Sun matters, too. Before committing to planting, keep an eye on your yard throughout the day to note the sunlight. Similar to many annuals, full-sun is a common requirement for perennials. Make sure you’re selecting the right seedlings and the right place to plant them. The perfect combination of water and sunlight is vital for happy plants.

When shopping for perennials, it is key to keep your hardiness zone in mind, as well as what plants are native to your area. Choosing plants that are naturally found where you live will set you up for success. Plus, the perennials on the list above are all excellent pollinator plants that will support bees, butterflies, birds, and beneficial bugs.

A Word of Caution About Extremely Hardy Plants

There are a few plants that I would classify as radically abundant; they’ll grow great, sometime to the point of getting out of control. Proceed wisely. For example, Russian sage is a perennial with big purple flowering stems reminiscent of lavender, and it makes a great landscaping option for lazy gardeners who want to fill a big space. They’re also easy to prune, because they’ll take a sloppy whacking and bounce right back. My garden is also exploding with oregano, mint, catnip and wild garlic—none of which I planted or specifically watered. Especially if you plant mint, I would suggest keeping it in a container so it doesn’t take over.

Easy Tips on Basic Upkeep

Drip irrigation is worth the cost. If you have the resources, drip irrigation will change everything for a lazy gardener. My main garden is rarely watered by me; I have a multi-zone automatic watering system that does it for me. It is not only scheduled to regularly water based on each zone’s needs, but it also integrates with the local forecast to reduce watering when there’s a lot of rain. It’s more efficient (both for the planet and your wallet), and it eliminates one more barrier to make growing your own food as easy as possible. Drip irrigation is an upfront investment and a bit of hands-on labor, or you can just hire someone to install a simple system for you.

Plant what you’ll use. An important consideration for any gardener, but especially those of us with unmedicated ADHD, is to focus on planting food you’ll actually eat. I spent too many seasons trying to grow flashy and cool ground cherries, only to realize I don’t really eat those often. And when you’re not excited to eat something in your garden, you’re not going to be motivated to keep it alive.

Don’t freak out if plants die. If you kill a plant or two or ten, it isn’t totally your fault. It’s all a learning process, sometimes things are out of your control, and hey, the plant should have tried harder. Plus, who doesn’t love an excuse to go get a little iced coffee and back to the garden store?

Consistency is key. Basic gardening doesn’t require constant hands-on work, but it does rely on consistency. If you, like me, struggle with time management, I suggest setting up a dedicated calendar just for garden tasks. I set recurring events for things like fertilizing, pruning, deep watering, even harvesting. Spending ten minutes in the garden every other morning will become an easy habit. In fact, “I’m going down to work in the garden!” has become my secret lazy-girl battlecry. Nothing sounds more productive to my husband than “I’ve been out in the garden for four hours.” What he doesn’t need to know is I spent about ten minutes pulling weeds and three hours sitting in the lavender bush watching the bees.

Katie BouĂ© spends most of her time tending to her half-acre homestead in Salt Lake City, Utah. When she’s not in her garden or chicken coop, she’s exploring outdoors with her dog Spaghetti or working on local advocacy projects. She became a certified Master Gardener in 2023 and believes growing your own tomatoes is the ultimate gateway to get folks involved with advocating for the world around us. Her debut book, , is available anywhere books are sold.

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Have you noticed that the butcher counterÌęat your local grocery store has been taken over by something called “American wagyu?” Mine certainly has. So, I set out to find out what exactly it is, how to best cook it, and whether or not American wagyu is worth the higher priceÌęover plain old prime-grade beef.

Wagyu beef is known globally for its soft texture and rich, fatty taste, and restaurants and butcher shops often charge much higher prices for steaks compared to beef from other types of cattle.

America wagyu is kind of a confusing name to start with, since wagyu translates to English as “Japanese cattle.” Are producers trying to sell us American-Japanese cattle?

Erik Sun, one of the chefs involved with the award-winning restaurants Bestia and Bavel in Los Angeles, and the soon-to-open Oxblood in San Francisco, says that’s exactly the case. Sun also imports rare Japanese meats and raises American wagyu

“Most American wagyu is 50-50,” he explains. “A wagyu bull bred with an Angus cow produces a calf that is still able to be called wagyu.”

What Makes Wagyu Different?

Importing Japanese beef products was banned by the United States in the 2000s after an outbreak of highly infectious foot and mouth disease in that country. Around the same time, interest in supposed “Kobe beef,” began to boom, perhaps due to its unobtainable nature.

Ìęat the time in Forbes, Kobe is the capital of the Hyogo prefecture in Japan. Just like only sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of France can be called champagne, only beef from Hyogo can be called Kobe.

But, those naming restrictions only apply in France or Japan, respectively. There’s no law preventing a restaurant or other business in America from selling you a bottle of Korbel and calling it champagne, or a piece of select-grade chuck and calling it Kobe. Only consumer awareness can achieve that here.

Olmsted’s advocacy for accurate food labeling seems to have stuck with consumers of high-end beef products. There’s now much more awareness of the full breadth of varieties beyond that initial demand for supposed Kobe, which was only ever a variety of wagyu in the first place.

Import restrictions began to ease in the 2010s, and all varieties of the stuff found its way into high-end restaurants and specialty food retailers. But high prices—Sun sells authentic Kobe striploins for $375-a-pound from his online retailer, —and the incredibly rich, fatty nature of high-grade Japanese beef don’t necessarily translate to American palettes.

“In America we eat big steaks—big center-of-the-plate options—and we prize beefy flavor or beefiness as one of our top criteria for good beef,” explains Sun. “But wagyu, true Japanese wagyu is just as much about the fat quality and soft texture as it is about the meat. It’s a much more delicate thing often eaten with an Asian barbecue sauce filled with sake, mirin and soy. It’s sliced thin, cooked over high heat, not rested, and eaten with the fat dripping on top of warm rice.”

Beef Grades, Explained

Beef is graded on the amount of useable meat a carcass will yield, and on the amount of marbling present in that meat. Here in America, the Department of Agriculture ranks cuts of beef sold in grocery stores for human consumption as select, choice, or prime.

Select grade beef, according to the USDA, “is fairly tender, but because it has less marbling, it may not have as much juiciness or flavor.” Choice, “will be very juicy and tender.” And prime, “has slightly abundant to abundant marbling and is generally sold in hotels and restaurants.”

Japanese beef grades go much further. The Japanese Meat Grading Association scores yields as A, B or C (A yielding the most meat), then ranks marbling on a scale of one to five, with five being the highest.

There’s also the international Beef Marbling Score, which grades marbling on a scale of one to 12. And while BMS is not a government certification, it does provide us with the ability to compare American and Japanese or other international grades on a single scale. USDA Prime cuts max out with a BMS score of five, while wagyu can go all the way up to 12.

Marbling is what we call the intramuscular fat spread throughout a cut of beef. The more marbling, the juicier and richer that cut of meat will be.

Why Wagyu Tastes Different

There are two further factors in that fat content: melting point and flavor. Sun says that the fat in Japanese wagyu cows begins to liquify at much lower temperatures than that of breeds we’ve historically raised in America, but that animals producing fat with lower melting points take longer to grow.

The American beef industry typically slaughters cows when they’re 18 to 24 months old. In Japan, the cows with that tender fat take 30 to 36 months to mature.

Diet is another major factor in flavor, as is the care and health of the animal being consumed. The extra time, feed, and care it takes to bring a cow to maturity in Japan accounts for Wagyu’s high prices, along with its scarcity.

That explains the widely-held mystique around Kobe. Americans tend to associate the Kobe label with the finest quality beef, but in reality, it’s just a breed of Japanese cow (the Japanese black cow, which is actually the most common breed of wagyu) that is fed a carefully cultivated diet unique to Hyogo Prefecture, and allowed to mature a little longer than is typical in this country.

Other, lesser known varieties of wagyu may offer different taste profiles. Sun imports steaks from cows raised exclusively on olives, for instance, or the elusive “snow beef” from wagyu raised in the colder climate of Hokkaido.

What Makes American Wagyu Unique

Alright, we’ve got our American-Japanese cattle, cuts from which can land anywhere on the USDA or BMS scales. Is this just a shortcut to con you and me into paying more for our steaks?

“A lot of the difference has to do with the American palette, and the style of cooking larger steaks where we don’t want a ball of fat, but we want texture and chew while still benefiting from the increased marbling that comes with wagyu,” says Sun.

He goes on to say that quality breeders have been able to take things much further than the simple Angus-wagyu cross breeds, and are producing results that, while different from those achieved by Japanese farmers, should be considered as their own unique breeds, rather than simply an imitation.

Sun says that by starting with one of the four breeds of Japanese cow that are considered wagyu, crossing them with one of the heartier, faster-growing American breeds, then “breeding back” to a high percentage of wagyu, American farmers are creating animals that demonstrate the “true beauty of wagyu,” along with the meatier textures and flavors preferred by American consumers.

Another advantage of breeding wagyu crosses in the United States? Importing bone-in cuts of Japanese beef is still banned. So, if you want a bone-in wagyu steak , buying American is your only option.

But, without laws mandating clear labeling, finding a product that’s going to match your expectations can be a challenge. You need to find a supplier that provides as much transparency and information as possible about what you’re actually buying.

USDA Prime Versus American Wagyu Versus Japanese A5

To determine whether or not American Wagyu can be worth a premium over a regular old steak, and if it can hold its own against the finest quality meat produced in Japan, I set up a simple taste test.

For the American wagyu, . They provide good information about the breed, along with a digital analysis of the percent of marbling present in the specific cut. This ribeye came from an F1, or 50-50 Angus-Japanese Black wagyu cross, and contains 30 to 39 percent marbling. Booth Creek feeds its American wagyu a grass-fed, grain-finished diet and slaughters them between 28 and 36 months. To my admittedly untrained eye, that sits somewhere between a BMS score of seven or eight, well beyond anything you’d find behind glass at a local grocery store.

As a control, I visited my local food co-op here in Bozeman, Montana, and picked up a grass-fed, grain-finished prime-grade ribeye from a local ranch. Still an indulgence at $27-a-pound, but hopefully representative of the best a traditional American steak is able to offer.

And, to compare American wagyu to the finest possible Japanese beef, I also scrounged around my deep freeze and found an that Sun sent me as part of care package a year or two ago. A zabuton is a cut from the neck or shoulder of a cow, and is typically considered chuck-grade when sourced from an American cow, but which is tender and densely marbled when pulled from a well-raised wagyu. This steak probably weighs only four ounces or so, but is sold at prices exceeding $200-a-pound.

How to Grill American Wagyu

One of the unique selling points of American wagyu is that it can be cooked using conventional grilling methods that will be familiar to most Americans.

My go-to method for grilling streaks is to first sear the meat at as high a temperature as possible, for 30 to 60 seconds on each side, rest it for 20 minutes, then cook it through in a 200 to 250-degree oven or closed grill until it reaches your desired temperature. The sear delivers a satisfying crust through on the outside of the steak, while melted fat has time to distribute through the inside as the muscle relaxes from the intense heat. Employing a pellet grill or smoker for the cook-through also delivers the flavor of wood smoke to the meat.

This is also one reason why I grabbed the little zabuton. Sun recommends cooking Japanese A5 quickly on high heat, to medium rather than medium rare for an enhanced texture. I was worried employing my generalist steak method might not make the most of A5, and didn’t want to waste a multi-hundred-dollar ribeye.

I cooked all three steaks using this method on the same grill, using the same wood pellets, at the same time. I pulled each when they reached an individually monitored 130 degrees internal, then rested them for 10 minutes before slicing.

What Does American Wagyu Taste Like?

The first piece of steak I cut into was the A5. It melted on my tongue like butter, and I tastedÌęthe overwhelming richness for which it’s famous. And while not as quite as crispy around the edges of the melted fat as searing it to 145 degrees internal would have delivered, it still had exceptional flavor. The fat tasted sweet, almost like meat candy, as it dissolved in my mouth. Incredibly rich, this zabuton could easily have been an entire, very filling meal all on its own.

Next, I tried the plain-old ribeye. While it required actual chewing rather than just melting on my tongue, it was still extremely tender, and delivered all that meaty taste you want in a steak, complete with a welcome touch of smokiness thanks to the hickory pellets burning so cleanly in the Yoder’s fire pot. I serve steaks just like this at dinner parties all the time, and they never fail to please.

Then there’s the American wagyu ribeye from Booth Creek. I’ve purchased American wagyu from my local meat counter before, with mixed, mostly disappointing results. So I was coming into this with low expectations. And man, I was wrong to do that. With a mouth feel and chew similar to that of the Prime-grade ribeye, the fat in the Booth Creek steak was much more present, and delivered a totally unique taste. Versus the sweetness of the Japanese A5, this stuff tasted nutty, with layers of complexity not found in the other two cuts. It wasn’t overwhelming either. Had it been dinner time instead of late morning, I could happily have finished the entire 16 ounce steak myself, maybe alongside some sweet potatoes and asparagus. But, instead, I’m saving it to turn into an epic sandwich I’ll carry up a mountain this weekend.

American wagyu may not be the same thing as Japanese wagyu. But even in Japan, there’s a huge variety of flavors, textures and qualities across the high-end beef market, influenced by variables like breed, weather, diet, and care. Those same variables are at play in America, additionally influenced by our own preferences. Take the time to source your American wagyu from a quality source that gives you transparency around what you’re actually buying, becauseÌęfancy domestic beef absolutely deserves to stand alongside the imported original.

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