New cookbook stirs columnist's plans for agri-adventures

“Foraging” — which is based on stories told by Andrew Black, corporate chef at Flint, a new restaurant opening this month at the Colcord Hotel, and written by my co-worker and author Steve Lackmeyer — is no ordinary cookbook. It's a kind of blended travel log, biography and coffee table book punctuated by more than a dozen recipes for Black's culinary creations made with Oklahoma's own, organic products — grown as close as Edmond, Oklahoma City and El Reno to Helena in northwest Oklahoma and Wynnewood and Lone Wolf, in the south-central and southwestern parts of our state.

Move over, Eskimos Pies. Hello, Wewoka Sorghum Glazed Sea Bass, Tamarind Glazed Shrimp & Pumpkin Salad, Peanut Crusted Flatbread Pizza, Cream Corn Chowder, Grilled Blue Cheese on Marble Rye and Spiced Poached Pear & Peach Cobbler, to name a few.

Presentations of the sumptuous dishes are pictured in the book through photography by J.D. Merryweather.

The cookbook grew out of Black's experience a few years ago traveling to more than 30 Oklahoma farms and then using those products, including Oklahoma beer and wine, for cooking demonstrations at the Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City farmers' market every Saturday at 900 N Portland Ave. (osuokc.edu/farmersmarket)

“Oklahoma has an abundance of fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy that makes for wonderful recipes,” said Black, a Jamaican who learned to cook in his grandmother's kitchen, where he used cocoa, crawfish, 30 different kinds of mangos, 15 different avocados, and pork and goat meat that he butchered himself.