by David Draper

As obsessed with (and frankly, terrified of) a nuclear disaster as I was when I was young, the whole doomsday madness going on today has pretty much passed me by. Maybe living within sight of an ICBM bunker, one gets used to having an ever-present harbinger of the End Times in your backyard. That, or I’m just too busy to care. Still, there is one thing Wild Chef readers and doomsday preppers have in common: a perhaps unhealthy obsession with food.

The real problem I have with the preppers is the kinds of food they’re putting up. I’m not sure I want to live in a world where I have to eat white rice and something called textured soy protein every day. And what about working your way through a three-month supply of Rice-a-Roni? That thought alone is enough to make me hope my house takes a direct hit from the first Russian SCARP (which, considering the Minuteman missile buried across the road, is not that unlikely).

by David Draper

I’m all about the hunting and gathering lifestyle, but there’s just one thing I’m not sure I could (literally) stomach: eating insects. Apparently, our Dutch friends don’t have the same qualms about bugs that I do—at least if you consider the recent story out of Amsterdam about the new Insect Cookbook.

Need more protein in your diet? Try adding worms to your chocolate muffin recipe mix, or spice up a mushroom risotto with a sprinkling of grasshoppers.

by David Draper

I’ve been blessed to be able to eat some pretty good meals in my life, from elk steaks in the high country to duck confit in fancy restaurants. But I have to say I enjoy nothing more than to sit down to a simple meal like this pronghorn guisada. A little meat, a few beans, and some tortillas—add in a couple cold beers to quench the heat and you’d be hard pressed to find me any happier.

A lot of recipes for guisada suggest cutting the meat in cubes, but I prefer to brown and braise whole round steaks, then slice them up just before serving. I feel you get a better fond—those crunchy brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan—that way, which really amps up the meaty flavor of this spicy Tex-Mex stew.

by David Draper

I’m just coming off a whirlwind road trip to the NRA’s annual meetings in St. Louis and am facing two more long hauls in the coming weeks for turkey hunts in Kansas and Wyoming. True to form, I’m not thinking about the much-needed oil change for my truck or that I should probably consider picking up some new tires, but instead, am wondering what to eat when I’m on the road.

Generally, I try to eat a pretty healthy diet. I could probably eat less red meat (though it makes me happy) and more fruits and veggies, but I’m pretty good at avoiding processed foods and white flour (with the exception of flour tortillas, which are a vice for me). I’m not even a sweets guy—desserts and sugary snacks are a rare occurrence.