Not only do I love to hunt but I love to cook wild game that I have hunted myself. There is no better quality time spent in the woods, on a duck pond, or walking upland fields with family and friends. The camaraderie, the laughter, the outdoors, and nature are heightened when you are alert to the sounds and sights of the hunted. The thrill of the success and even of the failure gives one a huge connection to the land and where we all came from. What would our country be without the wild game that sustained our forefathers? How is it that so many of us have lost our connection to the land? Does the best food really come wrapped in plastic from the grocery store?
I have spent so many early mornings and late afternoons in pursuit of wild game. Not always successful but enough to keep me returning to try again. I will only hunt what I plan to cook and eat myself. I have shared game dinners with family and friends that share in the love of wild foods and some that are trying it for the first time. It is true that some game has to be cooked differently than store bought meats, but it isn’t complicated either. Wild game tends to lack the fat that domestic meat has, therefore, you cannot overcook it or it will dried out. If cooked properly there is nothing better, not to mention it is hormone and anti-biotic free and organic in every way possible, Pure natural food.
I have adapted a lot of my conventional recipes and applied it to wild game. I love to prepare a game dinner with everything form upland birds and waterfowl to venison. All cooked in different ways with different sauces and flavors. I recently spent a day in the fields with a friend hunting pheasant and chukar. After a beautiful late fall day in the field I returned with a cooler of game birds, it was time to cook! 
I prepared pheasant schnitzel, seared mallard breast, chukar grilled with a sweet pepper glaze, red cabbage, spaetzel and wild rice! What a feast! My sister had never really had wild duck breast and she enjoyed the perfectly cooked pinkness of the meat drizzled with a raspberry balsamic reduction. Everything paired so well and it was nothing less then gourmet. Another successful and delicious game dinner.
