I hope the mushroom bug is contagious! Your Chicken in the Woods story reminds me of an embarrassment of fungi riches I experienced several years ago thanks to a Southern Californian unseasonal spring rain, and some recent municipal mulching that turned a local parkway into a morel forest. I had so many mushrooms that I too ran out of recipe ideas. I ate them in everything from frittatas to stir fries, casseroles to risottos. I dried out several pounds to much success. I was just thinking about foraging on a local walk with my daughter down a particularly shaded trail of oaks. This fall (we have a curtailed mushroom season in California) I'll start hunting for more. Thanks for the Substack mention as well, and keep rewilding. I'm right behind you.
Team Shroom! To fuel my obsession I’ve started some winecap spawn in a wood chip bed, and once the season turns and we can potentially harvest some dormant oak logs I’m going to experiment with a small shiitake “farm”. I haven’t had much luck growing lettuce in the woods, but our conditions are perfectly ripe for mushrooms. Hunting for recipe possibilities has been equally exciting. I hope we’re both mushroom rich come this fall!
Thanks for the post -- chicken of the woods are delicious! Two notes/thoughts: 1. be careful if you find any of those particular mushrooms growing on pine trees -- apparently something about the combo can make them toxic (similarly, some people have a bad reaction when they eat them and drink alcohol). 2. You should totally check out Adam Haritan and his YouTube videos/ Learn Your Land courses (especially the one on mushroom foraging!). He lives in Pennsylvania, so it'd be particularly personally relevant for you. And oh man, does Adam LOVE talking about foraging. His joy and delight is contagious. https://learnyourland.com/
Of course! I was grateful to read it at a time where I had an opportunity to reconsider my personal relationship with meat. It is such a captivating book and I believe it will be influential to many.
Use them up ! I'm still working through some chickens of the woods that I dried a few years ago, and they're just not as good as fresh.
Pro tip! Thanks, friend!
I hope the mushroom bug is contagious! Your Chicken in the Woods story reminds me of an embarrassment of fungi riches I experienced several years ago thanks to a Southern Californian unseasonal spring rain, and some recent municipal mulching that turned a local parkway into a morel forest. I had so many mushrooms that I too ran out of recipe ideas. I ate them in everything from frittatas to stir fries, casseroles to risottos. I dried out several pounds to much success. I was just thinking about foraging on a local walk with my daughter down a particularly shaded trail of oaks. This fall (we have a curtailed mushroom season in California) I'll start hunting for more. Thanks for the Substack mention as well, and keep rewilding. I'm right behind you.
Team Shroom! To fuel my obsession I’ve started some winecap spawn in a wood chip bed, and once the season turns and we can potentially harvest some dormant oak logs I’m going to experiment with a small shiitake “farm”. I haven’t had much luck growing lettuce in the woods, but our conditions are perfectly ripe for mushrooms. Hunting for recipe possibilities has been equally exciting. I hope we’re both mushroom rich come this fall!
Thanks for the post -- chicken of the woods are delicious! Two notes/thoughts: 1. be careful if you find any of those particular mushrooms growing on pine trees -- apparently something about the combo can make them toxic (similarly, some people have a bad reaction when they eat them and drink alcohol). 2. You should totally check out Adam Haritan and his YouTube videos/ Learn Your Land courses (especially the one on mushroom foraging!). He lives in Pennsylvania, so it'd be particularly personally relevant for you. And oh man, does Adam LOVE talking about foraging. His joy and delight is contagious. https://learnyourland.com/
Thanks for this resource, Catherine! And good to know about the pine trees, as we are primarily surrounded by a mix of oaks and pines in our woods.
Thanks so much for reading and mentioning the book! Very jealous of your chicken of the woods.
Of course! I was grateful to read it at a time where I had an opportunity to reconsider my personal relationship with meat. It is such a captivating book and I believe it will be influential to many.