Disappointed

I'm disappointed that no one had any Thanksgiving mushroom recipes to share. Christmas is coming and I know that many of you have mushroom recipes for Christmas (Eve). If you'd like to share them then please send them to me.

Also I'd like to create a wish list for mushroomers. Please send me some of your ideas. Off the top of my head I can think of ...

• A locking knife
• Loupe
• Basket
• Audubon Mushroom Guide
• GPS
• Compass
• WPMC Mushroom Cookbook(s)
• WPMC T-Shirt

by Joe  Contact Me

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well it looks more like Christmas here than Thanksgiving. The turkey is in the oven and a wonderful aroma is filling the house. Dinner is planned for two, we'll be lucky if we eat by four, and we're trying to get everything cooked to perfection and get the house ready for guests.

The wind is picking up and the snow is blowing across the yard. It's time to put a fire in the fireplace to ward off the chill. A big selling point for this house, for us, was the fireplace. The family room sits low in the house and the cold air puddles in there. The fireplace warms the family room and provides heat for the living room, dining room and kitchen. I don't use the family room much in the summer but in the winter it's the room of choice.

I'm still hoping to hear if any of you use mushrooms for your Thanksgiving feast.

by Joe  Contact Me

Oyster mushrooms Oyster mushrooms Oyster mushrooms

It's not easy to write about mushrooms as we get into the winter months. Well except for cooking with them. And that is the biggest benefit to safe mushroom hunting. Although we use a lot of mushrooms for Christmas Eve we don't use any on Thanksgiving day. Do any of you have a favorite mushroom dish for Thanksgiving day? Let me know. Perhaps we share some of them.

As I was preparing today for the onslaught of winter weather I found a couple of large (frozen) oysters at the bottom of my wood pile. I know that's not much but it my best shot at a mushroom hunting story. :-)

 

by Joe  Contact Me

Lots of mushrooms

I looked at some really nice mushrooms over the weekend but couldn't pick a one. I was browsing the collection of photos that were entered into the photo contest. There are some really nice photos in the collection. Next year I'm going to have to photograph a few of the mushrooms that ambush me while I'm mushroom hunting.

I suspect that the coming cold weather will discourage the fruiting of the late honey mushrooms that I see in December. They only show up if the first week of December is warm.

by Joe  Contact Me

Mushrooming? Brrrrr.

It's 20 degrees here now. The frost, wind and the cold have stripped the leaves from the trees and withered most of what remained in the garden. It has, most likely, done a job on the mushrooms who if they could would withdraw their fruiting bodies back into the cozy earth for shelter from the cold. If we get a warm spell the first week of December then I'm hoping that my late Honey Mushroom spot will blossom. It only fruits when we have a warm spell in December. Pretty hit or miss.

I did see a lot of mushrooms this morning including morels. I was browsing thru the CD that John gave me of the entries in the club photo contest. There are some really nice photos in there. I'm hoping that next year will be a better year for mushrooms. If it's a good year and everyone is inclined to head into the woods then I'm the cameras will go with them.

Now that we've had our final meeting for the year I guess it's time to get into the off season administrative stuff. Dick and Glen are already preparing for Mushroom Mania 2006. Now that's really being proactive.

by Joe  Contact Me

Stump mushrooms

The stump mushrooms belong to the Honey Mushroom family (Armillaria mellea). Within that group there are many subspecies. This makes the Honey Mushroom a bit of an enigma to me. I got back into mushrooming in order that I could gather the same mushrooms that I gathered with my family when I was a kid and use them for our Christmas Eve holy supper. On Christmas Eve we make a lot of mushroom dishes for the Christmas Eve holy supper (Svjatyj Večer). All the dishes served are meatless and traditionally not made with dairy products. They include, among others, Mushrooms With Gravy, Mushroom Sauerkraut Soup and Mushroom Stuffed Cabbage.

Before I joined the mushroom club I tried to find "experts" who would help me get back into mushroom hunting (safely). I figured that the old-timers at church would be experts and I went out with one fellow and we found some mushrooms. I decided to discard them after he told me that he "thought" that they were good. We also discussed the silver dollar theory of preventing mushroom poisoning. Never a good idea.

Then by some miracle on Saint Nicholas day (December 6th) the church yard was filled with mushrooms. After church we eagerly gathered them up, but we were only about 80% sure of the edibility and safety of the mushrooms. My wife suggested that we call the Penn State extension service and eventually we contacted a lady who identified the mushrooms over the phone. They were indeed honey mushrooms. We we hoped they were. I was uneasy with the over the phone identifications.

The next day we had the mushrooms for breakfast and they were fairly tasty. We both headed of to work. My wife to Greensburg and me to Weirton. About ten in the morning I began to feel a bit queasy. And it got worse and worse. I called my wife. "Are you sick from the mushrooms?" "No I'm fine you're just a worrier and it's all in your head." No this was pretty real. I was sick to my stomach and sweating. I kept getting worse so I bailed and went home. Mushroom poisoning? No stomach virus.

I have had other experiences with honey mushrooms. Because the subspecies have their differences as well as similarities I am always doubtful of my identification. There's a lot of information out there on mushrooms. Take a look at our species list etc. or look at this. Hands on experience with a knowledgeable person is best. That is the biggest advantage to coming to meetings and going on the walks and forays.

Now all of this had me thinking about picking mushrooms when I was a kid with my dad and my uncles. The secret mushroom spot was somewhere near Smithton. It was located in a damp area with a small creek, a huge stump, a barbed wire fence and lots of stinging nettle. We learned that one way to stop the stinging was to put our hands in cold water. That was however only a temporary fix because once you had your hands out of the cold water they'd start to sting again. There was no way around it, the hands where going to itch and sting for about an hour. I always seemed to have cold itching hands on the way home. Luckily my dad and uncles were inclined to stop for refreshments on the way home which guaranteed a bag of chips, a bottle of pop and the opportunity to run your hands under cold water in one last desperate try to stop the itching.

We were taught to pick the mushrooms one at a time so that no bad mushrooms would get into basket. I still use this pre-sorting technique.

by Joe  Contact Me

Mushroom hunting

Today I got the chance to head out into the woods to hunt for mushrooms. Ignoring the wind or sticking to the leeward side of the ridges I poked around in the thick mantel of leaves that the trees had been encouraged to shed by the wind. The sun was warm, the woods had the smell of leaf mold, fallen leaves and mushrooms. It reminded me of the times that I went with my dad and uncles to look for stump mushrooms. If I could have found a chip basket full it would have been a perfect afternoon.

I came home with an empty basket. I am a victim of the 90 percent rule. 90 percent of the people find 10 percent of the mushrooms. I am not among the 10 percent that find 90 percent of the mushroom. The same thing happened when I used to go fishing. No matter how much time and effort that I put into fishing I was always in the 90 percent category. Mushrooming or fishing it's at least a walk in the woods.

 

by Joe  Contact Me