FIELDWORK

An acclaimed chef chronicles her experiences as a forager.

In her second memoir, Regan, the author of Burn the Place, focuses on the stories from her past that have shaped her views of the world, particularly the natural world. Growing up on a homestead farm in rural Indiana, Regan spent much of her time foraging for mushrooms, berries, and herbs with her parents. As a child, she experienced gender dysphoria, and she writes about the importance of her parents’ support. In 2019, Regan and her wife, Anna, opened the Milkweed Inn in a remote area of the Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in order to escape the grind of restaurant life in Chicago, where the author ran the acclaimed restaurant Elizabeth from 2012 to 2020. They live mostly off the grid, and Regan prepares meals for their guests using locally sourced items, mostly from her own foraging excursions, which take her far and wide in pursuit of good ingredients. “This forest has many microclimates,” she writes, “and I’m astounded by the continuous surprises.” Regan laments the destruction of much of the forest and animal habitats surrounding their home due to logging, stressing that national forests are not afforded the same protections as national parks. She also shares her desire to have children in order to pass on her “cravings for the land,” and she writes about the couple’s attempts to get pregnant. Throughout the memoir, Regan shares other worldviews and many life experiences, including her family’s dark history of addiction, violence, fear, and obsession, shifting back and forth in time in a stream-of-consciousness manner. At times, the author’s stories take on a surreal tone, especially in descriptions of reoccurring dreams and the offerings she makes to the “shape-shifting god of the forest” before foraging.

An intimate, passionate, and fresh perspective on the natural world and our place within it.