Sunday, December 03, 2006

MUSHROOMS!!!!!


I was so absolutely bummed to hear that mushroom season 'was ending' already this year. Mostly because this is my first winter since I got bitten by the mycological bug that I have lived away from where there are many. I.e., I now live in the city and am bummed that I can;t go crawl around in the pine needles and mud that is my 'back yard' and come out with several pounds of yummy fungus that I would have to pay upwards of $12/lb for in the city IF I could find them.

So I was very happy to find this morning that my land lady was sorely mistaken - mushrooms were still out in abundance. I didn't even have to crawl - I just walked around the property and in about 20 minutes picked up nearly 15lbs of Boletus (relative of the Porcini - and often what they are called). I gave half to my land lady, and brought the rest home. I cleaned them all up and sliced them up for drying like I do every year, and then remembered that my oven here in SF is new, and doesn't have a pilot light... which has always been essential for mushroom -drying. Hopefully they'll be OK. If I'm really lucky there'll be some still around next week when I go back up...I gave most of the #1's to my land lady (tight little baby Boletuses that are mostly light colored and a bit wet because they haven't even emerged out from the ground yet - hard to find.), so these guys look a little old, but dried they'll be awesome. Hopefully the pepper grinder gives some sort of perspective.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

YUMM!! Can't wait for you to make yummy food when you come for the holidays!! So excited! Yey!

Indiana said...

My goodness those damned things look delicioso!!!
Bring some of your cooking skills with you and ready to be exercised!