Nebraskaland

38 NEBRASKAland • JULY 2015 W ith their first book, Hunting For Food, being released this month, NEBRASKAland Associate Editor Jenny Nguyen and co-author Rick Wheatley sat down to chat with me about this project, their blog and their goals with introducing people to wild game. JK: Tell me about the evolution of the book. RW: The book itself started from us both growing up in different eras, but both growing up watching cooking shows and loving the outdoors. We created our Food for Hunters blog, where we share wild game recipes. Then last year an editor at the publishing company F+W Media asked us if we wanted to write a book. We went for it. JK: Why did F+W approach you in the first place? JN: They saw our blog where over the last few years we have made a reputation for ourselves in the hunting community, especially with food bloggers. I was constantly pushing recipes on social media. Then we had a deer chili recipe that Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, which is owned by F+W, shared on their website. JK: How many people visit your site? JN: We have about 16,000 hits a month right now and that will go up to about 35,000 during hunting season. About 700,000 in three years. JK: What was your original goal with the blog? JN: We wanted to share recipes. We hadn't even thought of a book. We wanted to show people what you could do with wild game besides wrap it in bacon – even though there's nothing wrong with that either. RW: People who don't know say that venison is tough. Well, it's really not. If you take care of it right, you'll have some of the best meat around. We started this for fun. When we got our 100th hit, we were like … JN: Yes! RW: "Can you believe it?" we said. It really turned into something that had been a dream for both of us. JK: Where do the recipes come from? JN: Everywhere. A lot of it I make up, but a lot comes from dishes I've had in Southern California growing up. I recently made a Thai curry dish with snapping turtle, because I thought that turtle has a similar texture to pork. Even if turtle meat is gamey, curry is so flavorful that it hides it well. So I tried it. And we'll do the same with dishes from all over the world. We also collect a lot of cookbooks and adapt recipes for pheasant, quail or whatever else. JK: Do you write your recipes as you go? JN: Exactly. I have a small notepad I keep in the kitchen for notes and measurements. RW: It's like doing a science experiment. JN: For example, we made a morel mushroom chowder recipe last week. It was a basic chowder recipe, but I didn't have white wine so I skipped it. A FIELD GUIDE FOR HUNTERS By Jeff Kurrus Hunting for Food includes 176 pages of instruction and color photos on how to hunt, field dress and cook fish and game. PHOTO BY JENNY NGUYEN

• Cover