New Eagle outdoors cookbook blends Michael Pearce’s knowledge, photography

The ingredients for making a wild game cookbook filled with stunning Kansas nature photographs are as follows.

Assign the book to Kansas native Michael Pearce, an accomplished outdoorsman, writer and photographer.

Let him evoke how stunning Kansas can look, sound, smell and taste.

Let him write 50 recipes, each easily solving the mystery of how to cook game so it tastes great.

Wrap those recipes in richly detailed photographs of the dishes involved, photographed by another native Kansan, Bo Rader.

“Michael Pearce’s Taste of Kansas Outdoors Cookbook” is a richly detailed book by Pearce, with help from several co-workers at The Wichita Eagle.

It’s a book done for Kansans by Kansans, said Sherry Chisenhall, editor of The Eagle.

“You can tell how much Michael loves and appreciates Kansas; how much Bo loves and appreciates Kansas,” she said. “We wanted to share that with people in a classy way.”

Pearce grew up in Tonganoxie and chased after birds, fish and deer by age 4.

He has written and photographed stories for The Eagle’s Outdoors page since 2000. Before that, he wrote hunting and fishing stories for many years for the Wall Street Journal, including assignments that sent him to New Zealand, the Yukon, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, the Everglades, Mexico — and Kansas.

Wherever he traveled, Pearce said, he tried to evoke a full-sensory experience: The biting scent of sage tingling in the nostrils while stalking deer in some western Kansas ravine. The rich yellow and gold of a low sunrise on some misty morning in the Smoky Hills.

“The driving idea of the book is to show what it can taste like in the Kansas outdoors, and not just a chew-and-swallow taste,” Pearce said. “I was going for a vivid, sensory taste — including what it looks and feels like to be at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge when the sun is setting, and you’ve got a quarter of a million birds lifting up all at once.”

Pearce has a devoted following, so it made sense to do the book, said Kim Nussbaum, The Eagle’s publisher.

“I’ve always admired his writing (for the Outdoors page), but this book combines his great storytelling with compelling photos that Bo contributed,” she said.

Pearce put half a century of cooking knowledge and 10 years of his nature photographs into the book.

“I am not a good photographer, but I know how to get into great places,” he said. “My hunting skill helps with photography. Most hunters go out when the sun comes up, and when it goes down, and that’s when you get good photographs.”

Rader, whose photos have appeared in publications from The Eagle to National Geographic, spent weeks shooting painstakingly detailed images of the food produced from Pearce’s recipes: the tequila lime goose in chimichurri sauce; the Quivira goose and cabbage; the pheasant macaroons; the Lazy J Pheasant Fingers, and more.

Pearce gave Rader the meat, but Rader made all the dishes himself, in his own kitchen shooting — and eating — all the dishes himself.

“Sometimes if I didn’t like my shots, I had to shoot and eat it more than once,” Rader said.

This story was originally published October 18, 2014 at 11:54 AM with the headline "New Eagle outdoors cookbook blends Michael Pearce’s knowledge, photography."