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What's up everybody?
This is Raised in the Woods.
This is Ellie Lawton, co-host of the show and chef extraordinaire, we
Get to bring you the best of the outdoors, help you figure out how to use it, how to bring forage and food to the table from the woods and the cornfields of the great states of the Midwest.
This shows on civic media in five states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa every Saturday at 11 o'clock.
I cannot tell you how fun doing this show is, and if you missed.
even when I'm here?
Well, yeah, especially when you're here.
I mean, yes, when you're here, you carried last week's show and it was awesome.
We had such an awesome guest.
My back
wheelchairs.
And so now there are track chairs for use for folks with diversibilities to be able to get into the outdoors and to even stand them up to be able to participate.
One of the important things to the show and in my life is making sure folks with disabilities have the same opportunities as everybody else.
It's wonderful.
And
So we get to
And we've done that.
And that is incredibly satisfying and a fantastic aspect of the growing nature of people using the outdoors, which is super, super cool.
Well, we had a guest last week.
That was so fascinating.
We talked her into coming back this week, and she's here with a friend of the show as well.
And Shelby Christiansen is here, and Ashlyn Whitting is here, and I want to talk to them.
We've got Sarah Marinas, our homesteader, and of course, Megan...
The Somalia pirate, our Somalia, is along for the ride as well.
And hello to her lover, Dave, who could not be here today, who is on the road.
Megan, why are you shaking your
At us.
You will definitely laugh.
We have fun on the show.
I have a blast, and I'm honored to be able to sit in the co-host chair with Chef Lawton and do these shows, because bringing people
who may be inexperienced into the outdoors is fascinating to me.
It's one of the things that drives me when I get up in the morning.
And I don't say that lightly.
It really does.
Taking folks who have not
Had the opportunities to use the outdoors of these great states and introducing them to a part of life that is in three dimensions now You know, it's not a cell phone.
It's not a video game.
It's real and it ends up with food on your table and Jewelry as Shelby Christensen was telling us about and One of our guests today
I'm really excited about talking to you because Ashlyn Whitting is brand new to hunting.
Yes.
And this is what I want to talk to her because this is what we talk about when we want to talk about if you're not experienced or you don't know how to do it.
Ashlyn, you have literally used those programs that are in place to take someone who knows absolutely nothing about the outdoors hunting.
aspect of it.
And you've used that to become a seasoned hunter.
Yes.
I am so, so grateful for those programs.
Absolutely.
So
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, I started with the WWA women's learned a waterfall hunt.
Um, I've taken a learned a turkey hunt very recently.
Oh, awesome.
get one?
I haven't gone out for turkey yet.
I go this weekend.
exciting.
I'm so excited about it.
I'm going to nail a turkey.
Heck
And one of the things we try to do on Raised in the Woods is come up with things you might not have heard before.
And we have got a show
full of that.
And I want to talk about Ashland's transition from being vegan to actually being the person who harvests her meat and eats it.
That's fascinating to me.
I want to know, how old are you?
I know I'm not supposed to ask that.
I would not be super happy to talk about it.
I'm 31.
Okay.
And you got into
Well, it all started when a girl met a boy.
I did.
Yeah.
All right.
Well,
Yep.
he is originally from Colorado.
Okay.
He is an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisher, you name it.
And when we met, we're like, how are we going to make this work?
I am very, very strict vegan.
We have separate cooking pots and utensils.
And this man is like watching hunting videos in the house with me.
How are we gonna do this?
Did that give us some arguments?
It did, absolutely.
And that's, I will say, is actually what brought me into hunting.
it.
Yeah, so...
I
No.
I couldn't answer that for you.
I don't even know her lover.
I'll give him I'll give him the credit that he really does enjoy his vegetables.
That's for sure.
But no,
the
of the meat,
So
I need to ask some questions.
I want to go I want to turn this into couples therapy for a minute.
Let's go.
So you guys you meet you go on your first date.
Obviously, you being a strict vegan comes out on your first date.
You discuss it on your first date.
I'm assuming, right?
Oh, yeah.
And he's a hunter.
I'm assuming eats his wild game, all sorts of stuff.
That is so intriguing to me that you two even decided to have a second date because I've known people that
are
How did that work?
It was because I think that vegans and hunters actually have parallel missions.
that at some point.
Yes.
Yes.
Absolutely.
all the time.
and
Oh my God.
I love that you said that.
This is so exciting.
We could talk.
I just want to talk about this for like an hour.
I love this topic.
if you want to, kind of walk us through how that developed because that's a huge thing.
Like for two people to be like, hey, I'm a strict vegan.
Like we're using separate pots and pans and you have your boyfriend, your significant other saying, I hunt, I eat my wild game.
I mean, how does that develop?
I will give a lot of the credit to mediator and Steven Rinella.
Really?
We were just at the meat eater store for the Wisconsin Waterfall Association meeting the other day.
Yeah.
Megan and I were.
And I have to, I have to, uh, in all, uh, to be transparent, I am the government affairs director for the Wisconsin Waterfall Association, but they're a phenomenal organization in recruiting and retention of hunters.
So, so, so he got you to start watching meat eater.
He was watching Mediaeater, and I happened to walk in the room and witnessed a buffalo just drop in the middle of a field.
Did you just go up to him and slap him?
Oh, no, no, no.
No, I started sobbing, and I was like, how can you do this?
And he's like, but you have to consider.
This animal has lived a perfectly full life.
wild, wild, eating the most organically sourced food.
Okay.
Um, I think that vegans on that same end are like, I want everything to be, you know, healthy
and I want to
source.
And he's like, can you tell me where your salad is from though?
But can you tell me where your meat substitute is from?
And I'm like, I
Um,
Yeah, so Wow,
man.
He's like I just I really want to introduce you to this so
No, he really went about it in such a good way He's like if you're interested in seeing like my point aside from just being you know this hard-headed like oh, I'm such a heavy vegan I'm doing so good by these animals if you want to learn I'm happy to show you what this is
He's a cook.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yep.
He is a wonderful cook
I'm very lucky.
So
No.
No, we are
I did.
I liked him
I actually sent him home on our first date.
I got so nervous.
I was like, oh, uh, my mom's coming into town.
So you got to get out of here.
And I called him when he was on his way home and I was like, I'm so sorry.
I lied.
I really like you.
Can you please come back?
And he's like,
I'm like an hour and a half away.
No, but I can come back next weekend.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
Well, this is a fascinating topic, and I love the fact.
that you brought it into the realm of dating.
Well, because I have to know.
I need the origins of the story.
I want to talk more about that.
We're going to get into our Wilds of the Week on the crest of turkey season.
And I promise you, we're going to get to our recipe this week.
We ran out of time last week.
Our sommelier, Megan Salazar, is going to tell us how
to put some booze in it.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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This is Raised in the Woods, your one stop shop for everything in the great outdoors of the great Midwest.
My name is Joel Clayfish, host in this rock and roll ride along with Chef Ellie Lawton.
You mean this couples therapy session?
It has kind of turned into a couples therapy session with our guest today.
Ashlyn Whitting is here and she's brand new to hunting, but I think more fascinating than that, she was a vegan.
before she became a hunter.
And we're going through her relationship.
My timeline.
No, so I was born in Virginia, on the coast, very.
Love Virginia.
Yeah, low country boils, a lot of ham, a lot of seafood, lots of crab legs.
Yeah, that's kind of my realm for sure.
The first time that I stopped eating meat,
I went pescatarian
I can't give up crab legs.
That's not happening.
selective
Yes.
Yeah.
I really, I was in my teenage years, I was like, I am going to change the world with this.
could be a pescatarian.
surprise.
I'll tell you what though.
Old Bay tastes good on anything.
Sure does.
So you want pescatarian?
Yeah.
So pescatarian and then one day my aunt was cooking a ham steak and I was like, I need to buy that.
That's what I need.
So went back to eat meat for a few years and then I was vegan.
I think I went vegan.
five or six years and then started eating meat again during my second pregnancy.
the COVID times of 2020.
And the ham steak got me again.
Wow.
was ham steak, that sugar cured ham.
am.
We told each other the second time, that second weekend, we saw each other.
We're like...
This is it for me like whatever yeah, whatever you want to do.
I would say the L word.
yeah
we love each other.
Good for you.
We love each other.
This is the vegan
right?
So my first, I guess you would call it a hunt.
I mean, I had blaze, blaze orange on and we were in the plains of Colorado and we were determined to get an elk.
first.
Wow.
That is great.
We're like, we're going elk
and bull tags?
Yep.
Over the counter.
I think it was like 10 bucks for us because we lived in Colorado at the time.
And had
elk?
No.
Okay.
So this was a first for both of you.
Yeah.
It was so cute.
I had a little baby strapped to my back and.
the baby.
We did.
I love this.
Yeah.
happened?
No.
The only thing that we got to see were massive tumbleweeds.
Okay.
And no elk.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not too sure how great that would have tasted.
I don't think she was gnawing on
No, no.
Do they taste good
is
Yeah.
So at that time, I had also never shot a gun ever.
Okay.
So we kind of drove
to the country a little bit and we decided that we're gonna try shooting.
I cried my way through it,
I fired a shot.
I
don't think some people realize just how, and I don't wanna use the word violent, but it is kind of a violent.
It's jarring.
It's a jarring.
That's a better one.
It's jarring.
It's loud.
The kick, the recoil to the shoulder is tough your first time.
You don't have any confidence when you start out shooting
Boom.
Nope, not at all.
Okay.
Nope, I cried my way through every single shot over the course of the next couple of years.
Wow.
Yeah, I was, yeah, I was tenured by it.
But you didn't give up.
I didn't give up, I persevered.
So you actually,
Shooting a large caliber gun.
There's meat in that.
I'm so fascinated by this.
We're going to continue talking to that.
We're going to get back to Shelby Christensen, who collects Roadkill and makes art and jewelry out of it.
I love this.
I'm not making it up.
Both of those are in the same show.
And of course, we're going to have our recipe of the week with Chef Lawton and Somalia Megan Salazar.
We've got Sara Marinas, our homesteader who's here to chip in as well.
This is raised in the woods.
This is raised in the woods.
My name is Joel Clayfish I get to host this show and I always think to myself There can't possibly be something that I have not heard of before and we've got guests today One we brought back from last week who literally started her own personal taxidermy and creating jewelry out of dead animals by harvesting roadkill And now is an avid hunt
and some fascinating stuff.
Shelby Christiansen is here.
It's not in a bad way at all.
And Chef Lawton of course has her recipe of the week this week.
You can listen to Raised in the Woods on your civic media stations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota,
Illinois and Iowa 14 of them.
Our show is growing.
We're getting more feedback.
Our Facebook page is blowing up.
We gained over 500 new followers.
And on that, the goal of that is to give you insights into the outdoors.
You can go on there and see pictures from the wonderful hunt I had with my goddaughter.
You can even watch the video of her first turkey harvest, which is very exciting.
But we're talking to Ashlyn Whitting, who was a vegan and became a hunter.
Now, that's like two massive steps in one.
And in part- It's a great story too.
In part because of, you know, we hear on this show, we talk about Megan's lover.
Well, it was Ashlyn's lover who got her to come to, first of all, it really is a beautiful love story to begin with.
Yeah, it really is.
Love at first sight between
vegan and a meat-eating hunter.
We could be a Taylor Swift song.
Honestly, yeah.
That could be a Taylor Swift song.
Although I'm gonna like your ending better than a Taylor Swift song ending because hers go off the rails once in a while.
So do we.
Yeah, that's true.
We do.
We definitely do.
But I want to ask a question.
So, Ashlyn, you were a vegan.
You met your significant other who was a hunter and then
I want to know at what point his influence or your influence or what you decided to do, flip that switch to, you know what, the right thing to do is responsibly harvest and eat those proteins.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would say sitting out with him a few times is
the blind.
Yeah, I mean, I love him and I care about him and I'm invested in his life and his activities and it's something that he's passionate about.
So yeah, of course I want to try it.
That's beautiful.
I would say it started out gradually and being a part of the the women's learn to waterfall hunt is what flipped my switch on to do this for myself.
Yeah.
So I had a good friend of mine reach out to me and say, hey, there's this women's hunt that's going on in the fall this year.
And, you know, with us kind of both being new to this, I think this would be something that you would really enjoy.
You should just apply.
So I applied and I was like, okay, let's
see what
happens.
And I get an email saying, you know, you've been selected to do this.
And here's what it's all about.
We attended some really, really helpful classes over
over the course of a couple months.
And we drove out to Trempelo, which is probably the most beautiful place that I have ever seen in Wisconsin.
It is so beautiful.
Yes, yes.
We met everybody and had our range day first, which I was a little scared of.
I hadn't really shot very many shotguns at all.
But we met with this amazing instructor and I had a room full of other women who were like, hey, you can do this.
I know you can do this.
totally different than just
Yeah, you can't just sit there and really slow your breathing down and have that like steady aim and soften up a little bit and have that focus initially.
No,
it is.
The other part of it was I had learned that
I was a different eye dominance.
with like new experiences.
handed, but left eye dominant.
I'm left eye dominant.
you had to learn how to shoot left handed.
I did have to learn.
Yeah.
And you
I've never seen a group of women support each other more than at those events because you just you don't find that you don't find the camaraderie you don't find the support you're all in it together whether you're a mentor or a mentee everybody comes together it's a great great event Megan you should throw up the instructions on the Facebook or the link to
get
Yes, but I'm going to encourage you, if you want to get in touch with Megan to learn about these Learn to Hunts, reach out on our Facebook page.
Our followings are growing exponentially.
Go to Raised in the Woods Facebook page.
You can see what we're doing.
You can hear snippets of the show and you can
Sorry Megan reach out to Megan Salazar Well, it's not just if
and you can hear from Ellie and Megan talking about it how satisfying it is to be a mentor and To bring people into the outdoors and I can tell you having taken dozens of mentored hunters.
In fact, I'm
I'm really, really excited right now.
We had, we've got so much going on.
We didn't even do Wilds of the Week, but I'm going to throw mine in real quick.
Nell's Rude has never hunted a turkey in his life.
And I am taking him out tomorrow morning.
So I'm really excited about that.
We've been scouting together.
And boy, it's about the best way you can spend time.
And it's not in front of a television.
It's not in front of the
the three by seven that everybody's got glued to their hands these days.
It's in three dimensions with fresh air.
I will tell you watch out for the ticks though they are out there.
Ashland, I can't this is such an inspirational story and not everybody's going to have a significant other boyfriend girlfriend husband or wife who's going to take them and drag them into the outdoors.
But hearing you go from somebody who was opposed to eating meat
to begin with, to understanding the gravity of taking the life of an animal and putting it on your table is fascinating to me.
Yeah, so I've actually had a really big year of first.
I was able to successfully harvest my first goose, which was... So fun.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
We were in Kenosha County, now at Bong.
And I just said, you know what?
It's my time.
So I pulled the trigger, made a great shot, brought it home.
I cried, of course.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
I then was able to successfully harvest my first deer this year as well.
doe.
We were sitting out in the blind and, you know, it was a beautiful morning.
If you've been hunting, I feel like sometimes you just get that feeling.
Today's gonna be the day.
Sun's coming up, everything's beautiful, and I was like, you know what?
I feel good, I feel confident.
I'm gonna take a shot if something walks my way.
Perfect broadside, picturesque dough.
My husband was sitting there with me, and he's like, all right, when you're ready, you can pull the trigger.
Boom immediately.
love that.
And
elevated than that from the anticipation standpoint.
I had a hunter.
I had taken her for her first hunt ever and she said, I really don't know if I can aim at something and pull the trigger.
And I said, you don't have to.
Don't worry about it.
Well, the turkey, the Tom showed up about 500 yards away on the corner of the gun or on the corner of the field.
And she just about tackled me to try to get to the gun and ask if she could shoot yet.
And I said, just slow down.
But I think.
instincts take over when you realize you have the ability to put something on your family's table.
And if you haven't done it, go along.
And if you don't feel comfortable shooting, don't shoot.
And that's just kind of all there is.
there is to it.
I want to talk, Shelby Christensen is here.
We brought her back from last week because it's so fascinating what she does.
She makes jewelry and artistic pieces out of metals and parts of animals.
She started with Roadkill and then she moved into hunting and harvesting her own things.
And what I want to know is
When you are that, that's creative to me.
That's really creative.
What's next for you in that realm?
I'm still trying different techniques, learning different things.
My electroforming setup, I still got to get it up and running again this year.
So I'm putting some stuff together.
Since I started trapping, I started trapping a year after I began hunting when I was in college.
There was Fish and Wildlife Club and they said, we're going to take a field trip to take Trapper Safety.
Cool.
And it's awesome.
Trapping was something that I wasn't quite sure about compared to hunting.
I had still the thing in my mind of like the bear traps or something.
But I ended up learning a lot and realizing, oh, this is a viable harvest.
Yes, you use sometimes just the fur, but there's a lot more of the animal you can use too.
I use those bones.
I have a colony of termested beetles in my garage that they work to.
There are too many, far too many today.
But they are cleaning those skulls and they're very good for smaller things too.
But they'll be able to clean something detailed down to a squirrel skull, all the raccoons, beavers, things like that.
But you can take the bones, I will dry the feet, use the pelt obviously, and the meat is pretty good.
Wow.
this show.
Yeah, Raccoon's fantastic.
You
so it wasn't your
Not as good.
But
I'm really excited to talk about how folks can get into this one.
And we're going to talk a little bit about that.
But the fact that you take your animals and you're literally utilizing every
part of that animal is an aspect of the outdoors that I so love because I think that it really stresses the ethical nature with which conservationists, hunters, and hunters are conservationists, really find important.
So I certainly appreciate that.
I'm Jack.
We still got our recipe of the week with Megan Salazar, Somalia, and Chef Lawton.
And we're going to tie up Shelby Christiansen and let you know how you can take animal parts and make them
into jewelry and art.
This is Raised in the Woods.
We've had segments about love, turning people from vegan into harvesting and hunting in the wild.
We are talking to Shelby Christensen, who literally started out collecting roadkill.
That made me a little nervous when we started going down that road didn't make you hungry.
No pie You know, I do love eating everything we I eat almost everything that I kill I can't think of something that I kill that I haven't tried up to and including iguana and raccoons and Shelby makes this beautiful art.
You got to go to raised in the woods Facebook page Follow us and take a look.
We're gonna have photos of her copper
plated art that is made from the bones and pieces of animals, which is fascinating to me.
And kudos to you, Shelby, for stretching the extent of the ethical nature of using your harvest.
I want to know, how do people get into something like this?
It seems like it's so tangential and almost taboo, but you have explained that it's
Almost there's a mainstream sector.
There's something out there for everybody.
So for the listeners who want to maybe try this, how would they get started?
So there's a lot with like the basic preservation of like, how would you clean a bone?
Don't boil it.
Please stop boiling your skulls.
Oh, good.
Yes.
So think of it.
Good way.
Good example here.
You don't feed your dog cooked bones.
Why?
Because they're brittle and they splinter.
That is because heat damages bones.
So temps above about 120 degrees will start to degrade bones.
I see.
So boiling, it works.
If you're just getting the meat off to hang the deer skull on your shed, sure.
If you want a really nice specimen that you want to pass on to your children's children, you'll want to use maceration, which is just soaking it in water.
You can put in some meat tenderizer, speed it up, keep the smell down.
It's the worst smell you have.
ever had something rotting in water.
You can use the beetles like I have.
You can stick it outside under like a tarp or a box or something just to keep animals from carrying away the bones.
You can then degrease them, get all the grease, get all the yellow gunk and stuff out of the bones.
That takes quite a bit of time, but you can use things like Dawn and Ammonia to do that.
Then you'll want to whiten the bone.
Do not use bleach.
People talk about bleaching bone.
Do not use like actual bleach.
You want to use hydrogen peroxide.
The 3% from the
grocery store, Walmart, whatever, that works.
You can go into higher concentrations.
It's just it's a stronger chemical can give yourself some burns from that.
But I'd like to say if you want to reach out and learn more about this, reach out on our Facebook page, the raised in the woods Facebook page, and we will figure out a way to maybe connect you with Shelby.
And she can give you some hints or some places to look on the internet if you want to do this, because I am so hungry.
I need to get
to the recipe portion of the show.
I'm very excited about it.
We're going to do meat and booze tonight because Megan, our sommelier, is going to talk about putting wine or we're using wine?
We're
Yeah, it goes through the same process.
Using cooking a lot.
Fortified, so it has a higher alcohol content, but you can really simmer that down into a syrup, which is one of the... Which is what we're doing, yes.
Exactly.
The reason why it's fortified, actually, it comes from Sicily.
And as we know, all the wines that are ports and fortified, it was for shipping purposes because it helped preserve it.
So Marsala is the port in Sicily, and that's where it originated from.
dredge the sliced tenderized turkey breast in flour, shake off the excess, then you're gonna sear the turkey in a hot skillet about two to three minutes till it's golden.
Take it out of the skillet, set it on the side, keep it warm.
Um, then use that same pan.
You're going to saute garlic, onions and mushrooms until they're tender.
We're using morels in this one since it's spring.
Yes.
Um, and then once those vegetables are tender, you're going to deglaze Joel.
We've talked about this deglaze the pan with that marsala.
So that's going to start a really nice, wonderful sauce that marsala is going to, um, you'll be able to scrape off kind of everything that's stuck onto the pan when you, from the turkey and from, um,
sauteing those vegetables.
Very, very easy.
So then about two to four minutes, you're going to add some chicken stock or whatever stock you have.
You're going to reduce that down until it kind of thickens.
You'll start to see the sauce develop.
Then what you're going to do is you're going to add that turkey back into the pan.
And you're just gonna let it simmer for a few minutes.
You can add a splash of cream last minute if you'd like.
You can season with salt and pepper, obviously.
Add some fresh herbs, and then plate it and eat it.
That is what I absolutely love about this.
I get to turkey hunt tomorrow.
The Morels are starting to pop.
The asparagus is about two weeks away.
The wild watercress is going crazy in Wisconsin.
The mushrooms, the pheasant backs are coming.
There is no reason you cannot take, go into the outdoors and take your entire
Meal from the outdoors right now that recipe sounds absolutely delicious
and I'm very hungry and very simple So make sure you try it if you have questions go to our Facebook page raised in the woods if you miss a show Go on to the civic media dot US website and you can listen to all our shows laugh along with us learn with us and Please enjoy the great outdoors of the Midwest
and tell your friends about the show.
We love having you along.
We'll see you next week on Raised in the
Woods.
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