Talk about your desert solitaire: We weren't sure what to expect when we drove 12 miles into a canyon in Utah to meet 70-year-old twins who live off the grid, grow organic vegetables, and give tours of the hidden Anasazi ruins carved into red rock. I've spent years pursuing pioneers and sages of organic food, but Bill and Bob Stone are among the most interesting people I have ever met. We spent two days with the brothers, sharing the rich life they've carved from the heart of the desert.

After a turbulent hog-hunt in Texas, I'm happy to slow it down with a man who I aspire to be: John Duncan lives and camps out of his truck, but he also lectures on foraging for wild greens and mountain subsistence for the University of New Mexico. Wash off your city pressures and follow me as I join Duncan on a peaceful yet no-less-exciting search for the flavors of the montane forest:

Forget Porky Pig and Miss Piggy: In Texas, nonnative feral pigs are not looked fondly upon. There are millions, they breed rapidly, and each year they cause millions of dollars in damage to the agriculture industry and property. Plus, they trash natural ecosystems and threaten native species with their voracious appetite. The answer so far in Texas is to hunt them in any way possible -- even from helicopters. The long-term answer may lie in a balanced ecosystem, or perhaps by making it easier to sell their meat. But until then, they'll keep solving the problem with an old-fashioned, Texas-style …

This second episode in New Orleans started with an early wake-up for a drive out to the tip of Louisiana. As we approached our destination, I noticed that many buildings were new -- storms had simply wiped out so much. Finding someone to take us out fishing was difficult: Gas is expensive, and it makes little sense for your average fisher to go out for less than a few days. Luckily, we found Sinh Pham, a Vietnamese fisherman eking out a living despite low dock prices for his shrimp, high fuel prices, and the uncertainty of the BP oil spill …

This video tells the story of several different New Orleans residents who returned after Katrina to rebuild their city and started growing food in abandoned lots. Of course, you can't properly tell a New Orleans story without an appropriate soundtrack -- luckily, one of the featured farmers happens to play in the world-famous Treme Brass Band. (Special thanks to the producers of BrassRootsMovie.com for letting us tag along for their film shoot.)

You gotta love Mississippi: It's a land of traditions, where tamales are popular and sticking your hand in a giant catfish's mouth is a reasonable way to catch it. We experienced both on our way through the piney woods and rivers of the Magnolia State. Mississippi lived up to its other nickname -- the Hospitality State -- when we showed up at another stranger's house and were welcomed by a bounty of southern hospitality and catfish. The actual act of noodling (or hand grabbin', hand fishin', etc.) for catfish is illegal elsewhere -- until recently, you'd earn a misdemeanor in …

I find a lot of the stories for The Perennial Plate by searching the internet -- but when I stumbled upon banjo-playing mushroom farmers Curly Miller and Carole Anne Rose, I immediately fell in love. Then I learned that their operation is all organic, which gave me all the reason I needed to make the drive over bumpy dirt roads and across several streams to their farm way out in the Ozarks, where GPS and cell phone signals fade to nothing. Even though we only spoke on the phone briefly, Curly and Carole Anne treated me like an old friend and …

Looking at that pair of legs, you just want to eat them.Photo: Barclay NixIn this week's video, I joined some guys from Arkansas who I met on YouTube for a night of catching frogs. It was precarious. We showed up around 10 p.m. in a small town near Jonesboro, Ark. Better judgement may have suggested an initial meet and greet preceding the late night boat ride into the flooded backwaters of Arkansas. But alas, we were on the road and had not the time for such formalities. Normal bullfrog hunting conditions are hot days and low waters. We had floods …

Last year, we created 52 episodes about sustainable and adventurous food in Minnesota. For the final episode of this past season, we announced our plans to take this web series on the road. And with this episode (No. 53!) we start a whole new round of weekly videos about real food across America. Traveling with my camerawoman (and girlfriend) Mirra Fine for the next six months, we will be meeting farmers, fisherman, hunters, and foragers -- telling their stories, creating recipes with their ingredients, and showing our own road trip adventures. This first episode follows our departure from Minneapolis, travels across Iowa, …

In spring and summertime, we see local vegetables everywhere: at the grocery store, in the back garden, farmers market, or in a community-supported agriculture share. Sometimes there are so many vegetables, we just don't know what to do with them. I have the issue of having no air-conditioning and thus cooking can be a very hot experience. This video shows a few recipes for seldom-used veggies and veggie parts, prepared using less heat, including carrot top pesto: