How I went from finance lawyer to professional forager for top restaurants

I had ideas about gardening, but everything I planted died. Then I started looking at what was already around me, and a lightbulb went off

I was working as a financial services lawyer in urban areas like New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong for 30 years. My family came back to New Jersey because my youngest daughter had really bad allergies to the pollution in Hong Kong at the time. The whole forager thing started because we bought this major fixer-upper, and I had ideas about gardening. But everything I planted died. I was working, I’ve got three kids, so I didn’t have time to look after things.

I started looking at what was already there. What grows naturally? I was captivated by how beautiful some of these native plants are. And then my neighbors who are naturalists came over and explained the ecological difference between invasive plants [which are non-native to the ecosystem and whose introduction causes harm to human or ecological health] and native plants, which are indigenous species that occur naturally in an ecoregion without human introduction. That was my first lightbulb moment. I started to totally geek out on knowing what different plants are. I would read plant books in the bathtub after a long day of work.