The flower
of a black trumpet mushroom 🍄.
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#california #foraging #mushrooms #blacktrumpet
Chanterelle 🍄
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#mushrooms #forage #fungi #california (at Mendocino Coast)
Dehydrating coral mushrooms for winter broths and powders.
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#mushrooms #foraging #soup #winterfood (at At Home in Napa)
Bloxam, Coral and Russula mushrooms: dinner scored.
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#california #foraging #mushrooms #nature #forest (at At Home in Napa)
A forest symphony
on constant loop
beckons,
a siren call
for the world weary;
strings of redwood boughs,
winds in the canopy
cymbals of the Pacific,
the baritone of the owl,
the dramatic soprano of crows and hawks,
their score making it clear
we are not alone
and finally silencing
the noise
in my head.
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#california #nature #foraging #mushrooms #forest
(at Timber Cove, California)
Maitake mushrooms,
garden sage and spring onion, an irresponsibly-sized spoon of Vermont butter,
East India sherry.
#california #mushrooms (at At Home in Napa)
No animals were harmed in the making of Sunday supper.
#california #mushrooms #foraging #gardening #fruitsofourlabour (at At Home in Napa)
Turkey tail mushrooms (Trametes versicolor).
#california #mushrooms #fungi #nature
Pig’s ear mushroom, to be roasted for soup.
#california #mushrooms #mycology #foragingfordinner (at At Home in Napa)
Hedgehogs and candy caps, oh my!
#california #mushrooms #mycology (at At Home in Napa)
🍄
#england #london #mushrooms #girolles (at Borough Market)
The farmer was mostly toothless, his skin pruned from the sun, the dirt of his fields permanent planted in the crevices of his hands.
His Piedmontese dialect was strong, and my grasp of classic Italian embarrassingly weak. But he was kind, proud to make it understood that his apples and onions were grown with only sunshine, rain and earth. Excitedly, he pointed to several ginormous clumps of unrecognizable mushrooms with bluish centers piled in an old wooden wine crate, their thick, fused stems spotted with the wet soils of his orchards; fungi bouquets gifted from the rains of autumn and found blossoming at the base of Piedmont’s ubiquitous hazelnut tree. The Clitocybula familia mushroom grows in groups or in keeping with the culture, en familia. The old man explained they’re best prepared simply with olive oil and salt and cooked over the fire, his dirty hands making flipping motions to emphasize technique.
I bought them all.
#italy #piedmont #mushrooms (at Piazza di Dogliani.)
It was a long way to travel
for a mouthful of food.
In truth, it’s never the point
merely an excuse
to depart from suburban life,
to witness wildness,
to maybe find dinner,
to hear.
The white noise of the Pacific my compass,
the chafe and thrum of tree boughs
strings of a massive guitar.
Wind whooshes the tops of gargantuan conifer
cloaking crows with Joplin’s pipes;
woodpeckers drumming manically,
their red mohawks keeping time,
Buddy Rich on bugs.
Music of the forest
every bit as transportive
as Chopin, B.B., Baker.
Initial panic at being alone in the woods
gives way to fear of getting lost
within myself,
gaining either enlightenment or going deeper
in my weeds,
wandering permanently off path.
Thick spider’s webs
catch on eyelashes and lace hair
provoking squeals and shudders,
but their weavers scare me less than
bears and good ol’ boys.
Diminutive holes in the earth
dug by foragers who arrived early
foregoing breakfast to feast at dinner.
The smell of old burgundy
rises from the duff
where I shuffle and scrape and pat
in search of the waking porcini,
its wonderfully phallic top
just poking out
from a heavy blanket of pine needles.
We’ve been sold a bill of goods
hoodwinked to get more
pushed to get ahead.
I want to be
need to be
quiet
to listen
for my own truth.
It’s so easy to get turned around
the original path confused
and all the Bishop pines
look the same.
#california #jenner #mushrooms (at Jenner, California)
She warned me in a rather snotty manner that it would cost more money. I peered at her over the top of my eyeglasses, dramatically setting aside the Sunday Styles section of the paper in which I had been so thoroughly absorbed.
“Then it better be a damn fine pie.”
A standing mid-week lunch date provided an excuse to drive the long route through the Napa Valley, over the hills of Calistoga and into western Sonoma, eyes peeled for hawks, budding vines, and spring wildflowers. Seersucker blue skies were striped with heavy silver clouds, inciting our giddiness at the possibility of rain falling on drought-plagued soils.
Before stocking up on Sonoma’s bounty (honey from an on-your-honor farm-stand, a couple quarters of Blue Dream from the happy hippy clinic, and several bunches of broccoli rabe from nearby fields), we hunkered down for lunch. The modest, glass-enclosed dining room faced a large open kitchen, which spoke to cooking rather than preening, its shelves lined with mason jars containing colorful herbs, spices, fermentation projects, preserves, and various grains. A stout woman with long dark hair rolled out dough with her thick hands, while two lanky men manned a large stove, practiced acrobats maneuvering banged-up skillets between all eight burners.
Our heated, ripped-from-the-headlines discussions about the Middle East, corruption in Congress, and the plight of California immediately ceased as plates were set before us. Setting aside both the Week in Review and our wildly differing opinions, I reached for the bottle of house-made chili oil, infused to the color of our state flower.
Fresh spring morels, of which I had requested extra, were foraged the day prior from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and lovingly transported to this corner of Sonoma on large rattan baskets. The mushroom’s combs were chopped and cooked quickly in salted butter and decent white wine, retaining their toothsome texture and crowning their California earthiness with a French beret. Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman spread the fungi across the dough she’d been working, and then stippled it with pungent green garlic, snow-white ricotta, and Reggiano grated from a two fists-sized block. She slid the dough masterfully off the peel onto the floor of the stone hearth, retrieving it just as the cheese bubbled, and the edges of the crust singed to divine crunch.