While I Was Wanting To Get Into The Forest

This new round of rainy days and nights make me itch to get back into the forest with my bucket and knife for the batch of Chanterelle mushrooms. So far, farm tasks have been keeping me too busy to go for a hike to even look for the fungi.

While I was dreaming of buckets full, I missed the opportunity to harvest a brown field mushroom (it is a close relative to the white button mushrooms at the store) that came up in the yard under a 70-80 year old Douglas Fir. By the time I realized the mushroom was growing, it was well past the stage of deliciousness. This area has had brown field mushrooms in the past, but didn’t have any last year so I had assumed that conditions had changed underground, I was very surprised to see one this year. I will continue to monitor the area in case more of the mushrooms decide to pop up with the moisture we are getting.

In one corner of the garden we have had Shaggy Mane mushrooms show up nearly every year and this morning I saw five pop from the dirt. Shaggy Mane are very delicate and are only good the first day after emerging from the ground. Professional mushroom pickers describe them as needing to have the fry pan hot before they are harvested because they have a short shelf life before they begin to deteriorate. They can turn from a prime mushroom to a soggy, gooey glob in less than an hour.

Fortunately, the ones I found this morning were newly emerged and the garden is just feet from the house. I picked them, cleaned them, cooked and ate them all within the span of a half hour. I stirred them into a thick vegetable broth that I ladled over spaghetti squash. It was a wonderful treat that will tide me over until I can get out to the forest for the Golden Chanterelles.

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