By David Draper

I’ve only had the opportunity to try carp on a few occasions, but each time it was in a different, nondescript dive bar perched just a few steps away from some sort of muddy river or creek. Though the provenance of the fried fillets filling the paper-lined basket was never stated, the implication was the fish hadn’t journeyed far from water to Fry-o-lator.

By David Draper

A couple of longtime Wild Chef readers and frequent Food Fighters have stepped it up again this week in attempt to answer the question: Which meal is better—breakfast or supper?

By David Draper

I confess: Until my girlfriend moved in last summer, I did not own a Crock-Pot. So ubiquitous is the electric slow cooker that for many home cooks, admitting you don’t use one is akin to saying you don’t own an oven. Oh, I had a Crock-Pot in a past life, but once left it at a game feed many years ago and never saw it again. Truth is, I don’t really miss it. You see, my slow cooker is my Dutch oven, which you see here simmering a batch of choucroute garnie.

By David Draper

In our Six Pack series, I sit down with interesting people to ask them six questions about hunting, fishing, eating, and just plain living well. This week I sit down with Scott Leysath, better known as the Sporting Chef.

If you have any interest in wild-game cooking, and obviously you do, you’ve probably seen Scott Leysath’s name a time or two. Billing himself as the Sporting Chef, Leysath has been cooking up fish and wild game, and promoting it to the public, long before it was trendy. Over the years, he’s hosted a number of television shows and is a regular on the sport show circuit. Most recently, he serves as the host of “Dead Meat” on the Sportsman’s Channel and authored a new book of deer recipes, The Sporting Chef’s Better Venison Cookbook. I had a chance to hunt with Leysath in Utah last fall and found him humble, hilarious, and an all-around good guy.

When we met, you joked about recently burning yourself while making a batch of jerky in the smoker, relating yourself to all the rest of us hunter-cooks who have done the same thing at one time or another. How does that everyman approach translate into your wild-game cooking?