New Releases by Steven Rinella

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) brings to life the legendary wilderness exploits of men such as Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, and Hugh Glass, who headed out to the Rocky Mountains to trap beavers in the decades following the Louisiana Purchase. Living off the land and dodging grizzly bears, these colorful characters carved out an existence defined by their relationships with Native people, their capacity to endure the most trying conditions, and their intimate knowledge of the western landscape. This small fraternity of backwoodsmen--numbering only a few hundred at any point in time, and perhaps 3,000 total over the course of the era--not only lived in dramatic fashion, they died the same way: one in ten would suffer some sort of violent death in the wilds of the Rockies.Their extraordinary feats--some heroic, others horrifying--helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity. And when a combination of economic and ecological factors caused their world to collapse, the mountain men left behind more than just tracks in the wilderness; they established an enduring archetype of independence, resilience, and an untamed spirit that still resonates through American culture today.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The eagerly anticipated new cookbook with 100+ recipes from the author of The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook In his previous books, outdoorsman and hunter Steven Rinella brought wild game into the kitchen, teaching readers how to butcher and cook wild fish and game to create standout dishes with reliable results. Now, Rinella is hauling the kitchen outdoors, with a cookbook that celebrates the possibilities of open-air wild game cooking. Because food just tastes better when it’s caught, cooked, and eaten outside. Each chapter covers a different outdoor cooking method—grilling, smoking, cooking over coals. Throughout, recipes are tagged for backyard cooking, car camping, or backpacking. There’s something here for everyone who loves the outdoors, from backyard grill masters to backcountry big game hunters. The over 100 easy-to-follow recipes include: • Stuffed Game Burgers 3 Ways • Bulgogi Backstrap Lettuce Wraps • Hot-Smoked Trout • Grilled Lobster with Kelp Butter • Venison Stir-Fry with Cabbage • Coal Roasted Bananas Along with recipes, Rinella explains essential outdoor cooking techniques like how to build the perfect outdoor kitchen for any scenario and what it takes to maintain a fire. With preparations ranging from simple backcountry fare to guest-worthy showstoppers, The MeatEater Outdoor Cookbook is the essential companion for anyone who wants to eat well in the wild.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A hands-on, gloves-off, muddy-boots activity book for young adventurers ages eight and up, offering fun projects and adventures to build lifelong skills and knowledge about the natural world—from the host of MeatEater and author of The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival Does climbing a tree, building a bug hotel, spearing a bullfrog, stalking wild animals, and scouting for petrified wood sound more fun than homework or chores? If so, this guide is your perfect companion to endless summer days and rainy fall afternoons alike. Filled with advice, insights, and activities to inspire wonder and excitement about the natural world, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars is a curious kid’s treasure trove, filled to the brim with outdoor projects, skills, and adventures complete with illustrations. The book presents a ton of fun and exciting ways to explore the natural world, like • building an outdoor exploration kit • identifying constellations and navigating using the sun and stars • collecting fossils and other geological wonders • tracking animals and following weather patterns • making your own compass • growing your own fruits and vegetables • building survival shelters and primitive hunting weapons • fishing, hunting, and foraging for wild foods • making cool art projects using natural materials A must-have guide for budding naturalists, scientists, gardeners, anglers, foragers, and hunters, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars helps get kids out into nature, imparting lifelong knowledge and skills along the way.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An imperative call to action” (Nick Offerman) to get children off their screens and into nature, with tips for bonding activities that teach the importance of outside time and build tough, curious, competent kids—from the host of the Netflix series and podcast MeatEater “A revelation for families struggling to get kids to GO OUTSIDE, or to just stop using the darn smartphone.”—Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Hunt, Gather, Parent In the era of screens and devices, the average American spends 90 percent of their time indoors, and children are no exception. Not only does this phenomenon have consequences for kids’ physical and mental health, it jeopardizes their ability to understand and engage with anything beyond the built environment. Thankfully, with the right mind-set, families can find beauty, meaning, and connection in a life lived outdoors. Here, outdoors expert Steven Rinella shares the parenting wisdom he has garnered as a father whose family has lived amid the biggest cities and wildest corners of America. Throughout, he offers practical advice for getting kids radically engaged with nature in a muddy, thrilling, hands-on way, with the ultimate goal of helping them see their own place within the natural ecosystem. No matter their location—rural, suburban, or urban—caregivers and kids will bond over activities such as: • Camping to conquer fears, build tolerance for dirt and discomfort, and savor the timeless pleasure of swapping stories around a campfire. • Growing a vegetable garden to develop a capacity to nurture and an appreciation for hard work. • Fishing local lakes and rivers to learn the value of patience while grappling with the possibility of failure. • Hunting for sustainably managed wild game to face the realities of life, death, and what it really takes to obtain our food. Living an outdoor lifestyle fosters in kids an insatiable curiosity about the world around them, confidence and self-sufficiency, and, most important, a lifelong sense of stewardship of the natural world. This book helps families connect with nature—and one another—as a joyful part of everyday life.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An indispensable guide to surviving everything from an extended wilderness exploration to a day-long boat trip, with hard-earned advice from the host of Netflix’s MeatEater For anyone planning to spend time outside, The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival is the perfect antidote to the sensationalism of the modern survival genre. Informed by the real-life experiences of renowned outdoorsman Steven Rinella, its pages are packed with tried-and-true tips, techniques, and gear recommendations. Among other skills, readers will learn about old-school navigation and essential satellite tools, how to build a basic first-aid kit and apply tourniquets, and how to effectively purify water using everything from ancient methods to cutting-edge technologies. This essential guide delivers hard-won insights and know-how garnered from Rinella’s own experiences and mistakes and from his trusted crew of expert hunters, anglers, emergency-room doctors, climbers, paddlers, and wilderness guides—with the goal of making any reader feel comfortable and competent while out in the wild.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the television series and podcast MeatEater, the definitive guide to cooking wild game, including fish and fowl, featuring more than 100 new recipes “As a MeatEater fan who loves to cook, I can tell you that this book is a must-have.”—Andrew Zimmern When Steven Rinella hears from fans of his MeatEater show and podcast, it’s often requests for more recipes. One of the most respected and beloved hunters in America, Rinella is also an accomplished wild game cook, and he offers recipes here that range from his takes on favorite staples to more surprising and exotic meals. • Big Game: Techniques and strategies for butchering and cooking all big game, from whitetail deer to moose, wild hogs, and black bear, and recipes for everything from shanks to tongue. • Small Game: How to prepare appetizers and main courses using common small game species such as squirrels and rabbits as well as lesser-known culinary treats like muskrat and beaver. • Waterfowl: How to make the most of available waterfowl, ranging from favorites like mallards and wood ducks to more challenging birds, such as wild geese and diving ducks. • Upland Birds: A wide variety of butchering methods for all upland birds, plus recipes, including Thanksgiving wild turkey, grilled grouse, and a fresh take on jalapeño poppers made with mourning dove. • Freshwater Fish: Best practices for cleaning and cooking virtually all varieties of freshwater fish, including trout, bass, catfish, walleye, suckers, northern pike, eels, carp, and salmon. • Saltwater Fish: Handling methods and recipes for common and not-so-common species of saltwater fish encountered by anglers everywhere, from Maine to the Bahamas, and from Southern California to northern British Columbia. • Everything else: How to prepare great meals from wild clams, crabs, crayfish, mussels, snapping turtles, bullfrogs, and even sea cucumbers and alligators. Whether you’re cooking outdoors or in the kitchen, at the campfire or on the grill, The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook is an indispensable guide for both novices and expert chefs.

A comprehensive small-game hunting guide, perfect for hunters ranging from first-time novices to seasoned experts, with photography by renowned outdoor photographer John Hafner Steven Rinella was raised in a hunting family and has been pursuing wild game his entire life. In this first-ever complete guide to hunting—from hunting wild game to butchering and cooking it—the host of the popular hunting show MeatEater shares his own expertise with us, and imparts strategies and tactics from many of the most experienced hunters in the United States as well. This invaluable book includes • recommendations on what equipment you will need—and what you can do without—from footwear to cutlery to camping gear to weapons • basic and advanced hunting strategies for all North American small game, including drive techniques, solo and group hunting, ambush hunting, the use of hunting dogs, and techniques for decoying and calling • how to find hunting locations, on both public and private land; how to locate areas that other hunters aren’t using; and how to make competition work in your favor • detailed sections on furred small game, upland birds, and waterfowl, covering the biology and best hunting methods for a total of thirty small game species • comprehensive information about hunting wild turkeys in both the spring and fall seasons • how to master the arts of wingshooting and rifle marksmanship, and detailed information about shot placement, ammunition selection, and field maintenance of firearms and archery equipment • instructions on how to field dress and butcher your own small game animals for a variety of preparations • techniques and recipes for both indoor and outdoor wild game cooking

“[A] warped, wonderful memoir” (Men’s Journal) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of Netflix’s MeatEater, about his quest to turn wild game into the meal of a lifetime “If Jack Kerouac had hung out with Julia Child instead of Neal Cassady, this book might have been written fifty years ago.”—The Wall Street Journal When outdoorsman, avid hunter, and nature writer Steven Rinella stumbles upon Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 milestone Le Guide Culinaire, he’s inspired to assemble an unusual feast: a forty-five-course meal born entirely of Escoffier’s esoteric wild game recipes. Over the course of one unforgettable year, he steadily procures his ingredients—fishing for stingrays in Florida, hunting mountain goats in Alaska, flying to Michigan to obtain a fifteen-pound snapping turtle—and encountering one colorful character after another. And as he introduces his vegetarian girlfriend to a huntsman’s lifestyle, Rinella must also come to terms with the loss of his lifelong mentor—his father. An absorbing account of one man’s relationship with family, friends, food, and the natural world, The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine is a rollicking tale of the American wild and its spoils.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of Netflix’s MeatEater comes “a unique and valuable alternate view of where our food comes from” (Anthony Bourdain). “Revelatory . . . With every chapter, you get a history lesson, a hunting lesson, a nature lesson, and a cooking lesson. . . . Meat Eater offers an overabundance to savor.”—The New York Times Book Review Meat Eater chronicles Steven Rinella’s lifelong relationship with nature and hunting through the lens of ten hunts, beginning when he was an aspiring mountain man at age ten and ending as a thirty-seven-year-old Brooklyn father who hunts in the remotest corners of North America. He tells of having a struggling career as a fur trapper just as fur prices were falling; of a dalliance with catch-and-release steelhead fishing; of canoeing in the Missouri Breaks in search of mule deer just as the Missouri River was freezing up one November; and of hunting the elusive Dall sheep in the glaciated mountains of Alaska. A thrilling storyteller, Rinella grapples with themes such as the role of the hunter in shaping America, the vanishing frontier, the ethics of killing, and the disappearance of the hunter himself as consumers lose their connection with the way their food finds its way to their tables. The result is a loving portrait of a way of life that is part of who we are—as humans and as Americans.

A hunt for the American buffalo, an “immensely readable” (Los Angeles Times) examination of an animal that has haunted the national imagination—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of Netflix’s MeatEater “Both a fascinating piece of outdoor writing and a gonzo meditation on the history of the mighty beast in our national life.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal” plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the nickel. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos. WINNER OF THE SIGURD OLSON NATURE WRITING AWARD