Reel Masters. Susan Schadt

      The best way to sauté the mushrooms is simply. Just use butter, chicken stock, and salt and pepper. To finish them off, toss in some minced fresh herbs.

      And serve this combo like I do … spooned over fluffy Carolina Gold rice.

      FOR THE ROASTED MUSHROOMS:

      • 2 CUPS SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS

      • 1 ½ TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL

      • KOSHER SALT

      FOR THE PICKLING SAUCE:

      • 2 TEASPOONS KOSHER SALT

      • 2 TEASPOONS FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER

      • 1 CUP SUGAR

      • 2 CUPS RICE WINE VINEGAR

      • 1 CUP CIDER VINEGAR

      • 1 ½ CUPS SOY SAUCE

      • 1 JALAPEÑO, MINCED

      • 3 TABLESPOONS GROUND GINGER

      • 2 TABLESPOONS MUSTARD SEEDS

      • 1 TABLESPOON CORIANDER SEEDS

      • 1 ½ CUPS EXTRA-VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

      PREHEAT THE OVEN to 425°F.

      Toss the mushrooms, olive oil, and salt to taste in a bowl. Spread on a baking sheet in an even layer. Roast, stirring a few times, until tender and browned, 30 to 35 minutes. Set aside to cool.

      In a bowl, whisk together all the pickling sauce ingredients except the olive oil. Place the roasted mushrooms in a plastic container, cover with the pickling sauce, and then add the olive oil. Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks

       CAROLINA GOLD RICE

      SERVES 4 TO 6

      Carolina Gold is a delicate long-grain rice grown here at home in the Carolinas. There is a lot of heritage behind this rice and I am excited this locally-grown ingredient is regaining popularity. Charleston was built on rice. It is part of our history and one of the few crops we can grow here due to our warm weather and low country.

      Before cooking this rice, be sure to rinse it several times. This will eliminate all the extra starch and help give you a fluffy finished product.

      • 2 TABLESPOONS UNSALTED BUTTER

      • 2 CUPS CAROLINA GOLD RICE

      • 1 GARLIC CLOVE, MINCED

      • 4 CUPS WATER

      • 1 TEASPOON KOSHER SALT

      PLACE THE RICE in a colander and rinse under cold water.

      In a medium saucepot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Stir in the rice and garlic and cook until translucent, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in the water. Add the salt.

      Over high heat, bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 20 to 25 minutes.

      Remove the lid and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve warm.

      “One thing that fascinates me about the water is that it seems to exist in a continuous state of duality, carrying deep, eternal themes while also speaking in a present tense. It can move forth with such a slow and heavy force and at the same time have a dynamic and wild immediacy that is full of constant life.”

      BEING REARED IN SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA, with its vibrant shallow salt-marsh estuaries that breed life for the entire Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, informed my palate at a very young age. I vividly remember cane-pole fishing for bull croaker along these very bays and bayous I fish today with my children. Those experiences of long ago instilled a love and respect for our marsh and the foodways it gives birth to.

       JOHN BESH

       NEW ORLEANS, LA

      Besh’s restaurants include: August, a Gayot Top 40 Restaurant, Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Restaurant, and two time James Beard Award, Outstanding Restaurant nominee, Besh Steak, Lüke, Lüke San Antonio, La Provence, Domenica, Pizza Domenica, Borgne, Johnny Sánchez New Orleans and Baltimore, Shaya, and Willa Jean. Eunice, in Houston, is scheduled to open late 2017. Food & Wine’s Top 10 Best New Chefs in America and the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2006. Four cookbooks: My New Orleans (2009), My Family Table (2011), Cooking from the Heart (2013), and Besh Big Easy (2015, all Andrews McMeel Publishing). Hosted two national public television shows based on his books.

      I WAS BLESSED with an avid outdoorsman as a father, and I found my identity as a boy by losing myself deep in the briny hot marsh in the spring and summer. As children we tried it all. We were fly fishing for reds with popping bugs, casting double sparkle beetles for specks, trawling with our 16-foot net for brown shrimp, thrashing scoop nets in the grassy shallows for soft shells, crabbing with chicken necks and hoop nets, running trot lines, gigging for flounder, casting dead shrimp at crab trap floats hoping for a blackfish to bite, and frogging with flashlights in the starlit night.

      The marsh has a sound of its own, from the humming of bugs’ wings to the faint drumming of the diesel oyster luggers and shrimp boats, the splashing of lake runners and reds feeding on the brackish surface while nutria call out. I found them all captivating and peaceful.

      We ate what the marsh gave us, cooked based on what our delicious culture passed on. When I came home with a meaty redfish, it would be stewed down with onions, garlic, celery, Creole tomatoes, crabmeat, and shrimp into a luscious court bouillon and served over rice. If I came home with specked trout, the flaky white filets would be dredged into flour and sautéed with brown butter, lemon juice, and parsley for a heck of a trout meuniere or almandine, if mom had some almonds to add to the pan. The croakers we’d pan-fry whole and pick its sweet flesh from the bone.

      The combination of our rich ecology and deep cultural traditions has allowed me effortlessly to represent our region as a chef and steward of these great traditions. I consider it an honor to be in a position today to use our many resources to help sustain these crucial but fragile wetlands through a variety of programs.

      One could easily say that I have not evolved much since those early days of my idyllic youth. I am just as comfortable today lost in the Louisiana marsh with those same fellows I once fished with as a child as I am in one of our kitchens. I am blessed to be living on the same bayou that I started on, surrounded by the same fellows that I’ve hunted and fished with in these very marshes my entire life. I now have the honor of passing this beautiful tradition along to my sons, allowing them to grow in their affection and understanding of this bountiful and complex landscape as I did many decades ago.

      Today I have the opportunity to take my youngest son Andrew, or Drew Drew, on a fishing trip with my lifelong friends: Jeff Rogers, Drew Mire, my business partner, Patrick Berrigan, my brother–in-law, and his son, Big Pat. We are hunting for red drum (or reds) deep into the shallow ponds of the Delacroix