The autumn days continue. Just as you think it’s time to put the deckchair away, the sun comes out again and it’s time for lunch in the sun. These are some girolles which I bought earlier this month at Intermarché. I served them as a starter on toast, first stewing them in olive oil and then adding some parsley and crème fraiche.

I didn’t include this one in the meal…

So, maybe I can focus. Sometimes. On some things. Like food, for instance. Yep, shocker, I really like making stuff to eat and then eating it. I did that for about five hours yesterday. I didn’t eat all of what I made, though. Thankfully, on that front, I have help.

Yesterday was a good example of making the best of a terrible lapse in time management skills. I worked on computer things all day (interspersed with some knitting) and then had decided to go to yoga, which was at four. Now, consider that I’m still looking for a job. And consider that the only thing I had actually scheduled myself to do yesterday was yoga. I got all ready for yoga, and then for some reason (which I may never divine) I decided to kill a few minutes messing with this new mascara I bought. Right before yoga.

Please explain my brain to me.

I mean, the mascara is great. I like it a lot. But I don’t need to put it on for yoga, for pete’s sake. Anyway, I went to close my computer and hop on my bike to find that I had wasted some ungodly amount of time on this mascara and now was never, ever going to make it to yoga in time. Good job, Kirsten. When you miss your daily exercise, there’s only one thing to do: go to the grocery store and then cook up a storm. Yep, if you can’t work it off, put some extra in, that’s what I say.

Okay, in all seriousness, I needed to get some staples and the ingredients for a cobbler and some jalapeno cornbread for our impending craft night (hooray). I really sort of enjoy the experience of wandering around a grocery store by myself; I feel more able to browse and come up with recipes as I walk around. I like going with company, too, but going alone is a different experience altogether. I went to a grocery to which I’d not been, and enjoyed it pretty thoroughly. There were a lot of local options, far more than anywhere else I’ve been thus far, and I was able to secure what seem to be local, humane, vegetarian, hormone- and antibiotic-free eggs, milk, and butter. This is great for me, as previously I’ve felt a bit lost at supermarkets around here.

I found these:

Chanterelles! I’ve never had the chance to cook them before. So I made chanterelle mushrooms and brussels sprouts sauteed in champagne vinegar and butter, threw in some field roast apple-sage vegetarian “sausage” (seriously the best stuff out there, and not nearly as processed as you think it is), and served it over a bed of marjoram pesto star-pasta (like chicken and stars, because I’m seven and I like the shape) with a side of roasted turnips. And then a friend came and had dinner with me! And another stopped by on the way home. I think one of the best parts of cooking is the communality of sharing a meal, and I’m lucky to have people to share with.

So, how bout a recipe? Today I’m going to share a recipe for marjoram pesto. It’s easy, and it will blow your mind. Marjoram is one of my very favorite flavors.

• 1 bunch marjoram, about a handful, leaves removed from stems
• 1/4c pine nuts
• 1/2c grated parmesan cheese
• olive oil, roughly 4 tbsp, but use your judgment
• 1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 5-6 leaves basil

Put everything in a food processor and blend it till it’s smooth. Put it on your pasta. Thank me later. Yeah, that was difficult, right? Okay, okay, one quick thing: if you think it needs more olive oil, do it! Also, to actually make the pasta, I drained the stars, put them back in the pot, added about 1 tbsp of butter, stirred that in with another 1/4c or so of grated parmesan, and then added the pesto.

I’ll post a baking-themed entry later about all my cranberry escapades yesterday evening! I baked 2 different tasty cranberry desserts and I can’t wait to tell you about them. Teaser:

Apologies for the absence, The Daydream Kitchen has been on holiday in the New Forest, picking mushrooms and daydreaming…

A few days in the New Forest were spent in a blissful romantic and gastronomic haze: splashing and squelching and strolling arm in arm down paths and through trees, shuffling and searching and peering and crouching and picking and checking, just to be sure, the mushroom book. The thrill of the find, as the dense bloated stem of the Cep is grasped beneath its penny bun cap and plucked from the crumbly black forest floor. The rush for the next and the next, as the eyes tune into the forms and camouflage of the quarry.

To devour our foraged fungus we kept it simple, matching buttery pan-fried mushrooms with rich, golden scrambled eggs, briny bacon and nutty spelt toast – a filling and motivating breakfast to fuel another day’s shuffling through the woods with eyes to the ground.

Firm, nutty Ceps are a meaty, substantial mushroom, accented by the delicately flavoured corrugated sunset of the Chanterelle. They combine earthy, autumnal looks with depths of flavour and texture, which would be well suited to a range of dishes, provided the temptation to throw them straight into the frying pan is resisted. Our fungal forays have got me a dreaming of mushroom dishes: oozy unctuous risottos; firm, earthy terrines; mellow, creamy soups; stuffed meats; and fat, flat field mushrooms topped with blue cheese, breadcrumbs and garlic butter before grilling to a golden top. Hearty, robust fare for lengthening evenings and biting winds, and ideally followed by a wine in front of the fire evening: warm, drowsy, end of the day fatigue and a satisfied slumber.

Fungus is one of Ava’s favorite foods. She seems to have a keen interest in the texture of mushrooms in the raw state. Preparing seasonal mushrooms like yellow oyster, chanterelles, and porcinis have proven to be a wonderful activity. It is as if she is a reporter, inquiring all the details about each kind. “Where are they from? Who finds them? Why don’t we go foraging, Momma?” Great question… we’ll go foraging when she is a bit older and can handle some serious hiking.

Here we made a simple sauté, using Patricia Wells’ method of the double cooking method for mushrooms.
Wild Mushroom Sautee
½ lb Wild mushrooms (chanterelles, morels, porcini)
1 Tbs butter
1 Tbs olive oil
½ Tbs garlic, minced
1 tsp fine herbs (if desired)
1. With clean mushrooms, sauté once in olive oil. This extracts the moisture from the mushroom. Reserve to sauté prior to serving.
2. Into a hot skillet, drizzle a small amount of olive oil. Add garlic and stir to lightly cook.
3. Add pre-cooked mushrooms, toss and sauté until garlic and mushrooms are toasty and cooked through. Finish with fine herbs, if you like.
4. Serve over crusty bread, pizza, anything that will be complemented by the earthy goodness

I get very excited about mushrooms, but disappointed sometimes too. I may have ranted about this before, but despite the Pacific Northwest’s reputation, I really had much better luck finding edible mushrooms in northwestern Pennsylvania where there was less competition, more wildland, and a summer as well as fall  mushroom season. Sure there are way more chanterelles out here, but there is more to mushrooming than that apricot-colored slug of a fungus. Just kidding, I like chanterelles. The other thing is when I lived in Pennsylvania I never went mushroom hunting specifically for edibles. I was into identifying every mushroom, and I just happened to find them. Here edible mushroom hunting as a sport is a popular social activity, and in some ways the pressure to find the booty makes it less fun.

Anyway, this is the first fall in Oregon I really got to get outdoors for mushroom season. I got my fill of edibles one day early on when I picked a couple pounds of chanterelles just off of Highway 26 headed toward Seaside. Then I could concentrate on the rest.  Here are a few of my other finds:

Earthstar

Finding one of these is a real treat. Many earthstars are hygroscopic, meaning their rays fold closed in dry weather and open in wet weather. Like puffballs, they are not edible when mature.

Questionable Stropharia

These mushrooms, Stropharia ambigua, I found growing in droves at both the Leach Botanical Gardens in Portland, and the Audubon Society property in Sandy, OR. They have a yellow cap with shaggy white edges and a shaggy white stalk. The gills are purple gray. As for edibility, it is “not recommended”.

Flat-topped Agaricus

This mushroom is definitely an agaricus, mostly likely of the flat-topped variety (Agaricus praeclaraesquamosus). I found it growing in the woods on the Marquam Trail in southwest Portland. Distinguishing characteristics besides location include the pink gills which are free from the stalk (chocolate brown when older), a large ring, a base that stains bright yellow when cut and gives off an unpleasant odor, and a white top with small brown scales.

Crazy Russula

Red Coral Mushroom

This scaly, old Russula was gigantic. I don’t know exactly what kind it is, but russulas in general can be identified by their brittle chalk-like texture. They shatter when thrown, and the stalks break cleanly with no visible strings or fibers. Due to the texture of their flesh even “edible” russulas are not generally eaten. An exception is the lobster mushroom which occurs when another mushroom, Hypomyces lactiflorum colonizes Russula brevipes. The pretty little coral is mostly likely Ramaria araiospora.

‘Tis the season. For a lot of things, actually.  I hear talk of comfort food and big cozy sweaters, fires in the fire place and hunkering down to watch old movies and read a good book.

And with all this rain, cooling temperatures, it’s also the season of wild mushrooms. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve eaten various types of the seasonal delicacy in recent weeks, but they include a wonderful spinach salad with wild mushrooms and goat cheese at FareStart, a kind of ragout of chanterelles at a dinner meeting held at Lisa Dupar’s Pomegranate, and a roasted corn soup with wild mushrooms at Barrio. It’s always time to celebrate when the price of chanterelles begins to approach that of cultivated mushrooms, a sure sign the bounty is here. So we’ve had them at home, as well, sautéed with chard and garlic, or added to a rice pilaf.

But ’tis THE season as well. The holiday season. The one that has us all starting to dream up menu plans and flip through magazines for ideas. Thanksgiving is hands-down my favorite holiday of the year, not to mention one of my favorite meals. And it’s one that I love to keep traditional. No standing rib roast or salmon fillet or crown of pork. It’s always turkey, or on rare occasion maybe Cornish game hens, as I did on the grill one year. Stuffing, absolutely. Potatoes? Yes, mashed and rich. A bright crisp salad. Something pumpkiny for dessert.

Only thing missing is a green vegetable. And the most quintessential side dish at this time of year is the famous green bean casserole. Nostalgic, beloved, but who today can stomach the canned provinence of the original’s ingredients? I know I can’t. Which is why, in the course of developing recipes for my Wild Mushrooms cookbook, I came up with a from-scratch version. Simple white sauce. Lots of fresh wild chanterelle mushrooms. Savory leeks. Crisp green beans. And a chanterelle/bread crumb topping. Still a little nostalgia in there. But with a whole lot more flavor! (Go ahead and use those crunchy canned fried onions if you just can’t imagine this recipe without them.)

One of the many beautiful watercolor illustrations done for my book by artist Don Barnett

Green Bean and Chanterelle Casserole

from Wild Mushrooms, in the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook Series

1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, split, cleaned and sliced

1 pound chanterelles, brushed clean, trimmed and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup dried bread crumbs

White Sauce:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole milk

Pinch freshly grated or ground nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the white sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture foams up and begins to smell slightly nutty, 2 to 3 minutes (the flour should not brown). Slowly whisk in the milk and cook until the sauce thickens, whisking often to avoid any lumps or sticking, 6 to 8 minutes. Take the pan from the heat and whisk in the nutmeg with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter a 12-inch oval baking dish or other 2-quart baking dish. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the green beans, and cook until they are bright green and nearly tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain well.

Melt the butter in a sauté pan or large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook, stirring, until tender and aromatic, 2 to 3 minutes. Set aside about 1/2 cup of the chanterelles and add the rest to the skillet. Cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are tender and any liquid they give off has evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Take the skillet from the heat and stir in the white sauce, white wine, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the beans and stir to evenly coat them in the sauce, then transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish.

Pulse the bread crumbs and reserved chanterelles in a food processor to a fine crumbly texture. Scatter the mixture over the green beans and bake until bubbly-hot and the topping is nicely browned, 30 to 40 minutes. Spoon onto individual plates to serve.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

I’ve long been meaning to do a post on pfifferlinge (chanterelles in English), but I don’t usually eat them with anything, so it would’ve been a bit of a boring post.  However, on Saturday, Kookie, Katrin, and I went to Trier and stopped by Strauss Inovation (think gourmet food store with an identity crisis).  Browsing through the pasta section, I found a pack of spaghetti nero – pasta made with squid ink.

I thought, “Hey, that’s a pretty good colour contrast, right?  White plate, black pasta, orange mushrooms?  I’m sold.”

So here we are: pfifferlingen with spaghetti nero.  It’s a pretty good harvest dish, I think – like most mushrooms, pfifferlingen are excellent this time of year (though still rather expensive).  Pfifferlingen are wild mushrooms that have a characteristic light orange colour and real pfifferlingen have the gills running down the stem.  They’re easy to cook, but they need to be washed thoroughly (I rinsed them in cold water), unless you want a little something extra in your food…

The pfifferlingen have a meaty texture, and the classic way to cook them is just to fry them up in butter.  An alternative is to add them to a cream sauce, but I neither want to consume so much cream, or have the patience to make one!  The amounts given below are flexible, of course – the recipe isn’t going  to fail if you double the amount of pfifferlingen and half the amount of pasta =)

Ingredients:

• 100g pfifferlinge
• 150g pasta (depends on how much you want to eat)
• 30g butter
• salt and olive oil to taste

1. Cook the pasta anyway you like – I like to do the “Janet special”: stick the pasta into a pot of water, turn on the burner to max, wait for the water to boil, then turn it off.  I’m pretty sure that’s not the proper way to cook pasta, but it’s so time efficient…

2. Meanwhile, wash the pfifferlingen and put them into a skillet (I have a non-stick, but it doesn’t matter, as you’re going to add butter to it).  Turn on the heat to max.

3. Add the butter to the pan and wait for the mushrooms to start releasing water.  Fry until the water is evaporated and the liquid inside the pan almost turns clear.

4. Drain the pasta and add some olive oil and salt to it.  Top with the pfifferlingen.

Comments

I should have left more of the water in the mushrooms – unfortunately, I stepped away to use MSN, and by the time I came back, all the water was gone =(  Also, when I drained the pasta, it smelled really strange…kind of fishy.  It didn’t taste that way, though, so maybe it was just my imagination.  And the rumours that the squid ink in black pasta will stain your teeth are not true – I checked in the mirror straight away =)

Coming soon: okonomiyaki!  May also get a mini oven like Kookie so I can bake things in my apartment…(American) Thanksgiving is coming up soon…

]]> http://confluenceculture.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/on-seeing-in-the-woods/ Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:12:18 +0000 oliverhulland http://confluenceculture.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/on-seeing-in-the-woods/

Amidst the duff of a darkened forest floor the flash of orange/yellow color that characterizes Cantharellus cibarius (or Chanterelle mushroom for the rest of us),  is enough to get any mycophiles heart racing. But to the untrained eye the likelihood of finding and recognizing edible mushrooms amongst the hyper abundance of flora and fauna that litters the forest floor is a completely different, and far less likely, matter altogether.

Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius) (flickr/JsonLind)

Amongst mushroom foragers it is a commonly accepted fact that the shorter you are the better the haul. The argument goes that the closer you are to the ground the higher the likelihood that you will find the tasty morsels (or morels) that you seek. It isn’t even uncommon for the children of foragers to outdo their older, and taller, counterparts, simply because of their favorable distance to the earth. Yet, while height plays a significant part in the hunt for mushrooms, I believe it has more to do with a cultivated and attuned quality of seeing.

The giant upside down Amanita muscaria (or Fly Agaric to the hallucinogenically inclined) that litter the gallery ceiling of Carsten Höller’s installation titled (all too literally) “Upside Down Mushroom Room” are more than absurd gestures or facile attempts to make us feel out of place. Rather, they are an attempt to rewire how we see. Inspired by the late 19th century experiment by Dr. George Malcolm Stratton who sought to understand how inverted images projected upon our retina appear upright by wearing glasses that flipped his vision, Höller’s work inverts our expectations twofold by distorting the size and orientation of the fungi he so playfully chose as subjects.

While the abnormally huge inverted fungi in Holler’s installation may seem like a playful experiment, the result can feel far more unsettling. Defying gravity and scale these mushrooms cause the participant to feel disoriented as our brain reels for an understanding of how it has found itself in a position that defies any previously learned heuristic. And so our brain begins to cope with this new information. Given enough time, just like Dr. Stratton proved with his inverting glasses, our brains would rewire and we would see once more.

Hunting for mushrooms, like Holler’s work, is implicitly tied up with how we perceive the world around us. From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense that as bipeds who once relied on gathering for sustenance we would develop a sophisticated set of tools that allow us to see in ways that maximize our fitness. It is just that in an era of HD TV and chronic over-stimulation we have lost our way in the woods.

What is most astonishing to me, a new convert to the world of mushroom hunting, is how quickly our eyes (and therefore our brains) adapt to the challenges of seeing in such a new environment. It begins with hopelessness. A quality of being completely overwhelmed by the presence of so many new stimuli that prevents our brains from making any sense of the mess. But slowly we begin to breakdown the layout of the forest floor, recognizing distinct niches of ferns or moss, revealing a distinct, and logical, structure. Little by little we start to see the thousands of Little Brown Mushrooms (or LBM) that materialize everywhere upon first recognition (but that are frustratingly indistinct for proper identification). With enough tromping larger mushrooms appear here and there, and with a guide (I recommend Dave Arora’s All That The Rain Brings And More…) proper identification becomes a welcome chore.

Chanterelles fill the forest floor (flickr/mycologista)

And then it happens. The moment arrives when you are no longer lost in a bewildering environment, but instead find yourself comfortable and attuned to the patterns of the forest. A fog lifts and you can finally see. This process, while at times fruitless and frustrating, is actually indicative of something transformative that happens in the brain: a collection of visual and environmental cues become linked and primed to maximize success in the search of rewards. It should come as no surprise that our bodies react accordingly to the environmental cues that signal potential reward. Whether it be a flash of color or a patch of particularly attractive moss, our hearts start racing while our palms become sweaty (sometimes before we consciously know what we are getting excited about) in anticipation of a mushroom that may just become dinner.

A) False Chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca) (B) Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) (C) The Jack O'Lantern (Omphalotus illudens)

Unfortunately, this reinforcement works both ways. The commonality of palatable mushrooms with poisonous mimics can, at times, make the forest floor feel more like a mine field than a cornucopia. And one wrong mistake is all it takes to permanently discourage our brains from ever foraging again.

So what do a Belgian artist’s work and foraging for mushrooms have in common? Both can be seen as a celebration of how we see. Moreover, they are experiments that demonstrate the unbelievable plasticity our brain demonstrates when faced with novel visual and sensory stimuli. Furthermore, they provide insights into how our ancestors may have learned to survive in such a bewildering and constantly changing environment.

It is not uncommon to come home from the woods without a haul of mushrooms (reminding myself about what I need to pick up for dinner on the way home). But it is truly rare for me to arrive empty handed. More often than not I come home having found something just as nourishing; a new way to see.

Links:

Carsten Holler

Interview with Carsten Holler

A Discovery Channel clip on how our brains help us see

I Sing: The Body’s Pattern Recognition Machine

Last weekend was spent tripping through the woods and scouring the forest floor in search of the sometimes elusive chanterelle mushroom. When the area is right, you will know it -you’ll be surrounded by Douglas fir trees, salal and soft earth. You can almost smell the mushroom before you see it. I find that as soon as I give up looking, a golden yellow prize will appear in front of my eyes, usually accompanied by one or two friends.

Wild Mushroom Harvesting

Chanterelles are one of the easiest mushrooms for a novice hunter. Their only decoy, the false chanterelle, won’t even poison you! I highly recommend the book The New Savory Wild Mushroom for novice hunters. But remember, if you aren’t absolutely sure, don’t eat it (or better yet, don’t pick it, but leave it for those of us who are certain).

Mushrooms!

Executive Chef Mikey Stern snapped this shot inside the Michael’s Santa Monica kitchen.  Can you identify these mushrooms?

• The golden little parasol-shaped mushrooms are chanterelles.
• The orange ones that look like cooked, shelled lobster meat are lobster mushrooms.
• The clusters are hen of the woods.
• The big caps are trumpet mushrooms.

These mushrooms will appear throughout the Fall menu, in omelettes, risotto, roast chicken, and nightly specials on both coasts.

Courtesy of the last ’shrooms of the season.

First, a Bolete quesadilla, made in this case with a pair of King Boletes.

This was fun, doing the mushrooms first at high heat, then adding celery and chunky garlic, then taking the whole lot out and reserving it before adding a little butter and frying a large flour tortilla a bit ’till it was ready to receive back the ’shroom filling:

It folded over quite nicely, thank you, before I crisped it up for the kill.

‘Twas guuud.

‘Twas equally guuud to think of something to do with my last harvest of chanterelles for the season.  They’re a summer mushroom around here, and are most likely done blooming.

I sautéed the chanterelles with celery and sun dried tomatoes, then unceremoniously removed them all from the pan and replaced them with my new love, fresh goat cheese raviolis poached in chicken broth.  Then, as above, I added back the niceties to dish up Raviolis with Wild Mushrooms:

I made noises eating this.  I may have bothered the neighbors.  I didn’t care.  Life is too short to not appreciate what’s good, and I’m just not into dampening my enthusiasm for what I have left of it.

Not that I’m checking out, mind you, but I’m no Spring chicken either.

And one never knows, now, does one?

Chicken liver pate.

Scrapped the black gills of the portabellos for the banh mi.

This is the story of how the random ingredients I assembled beforehand transformed themselves into a marvelous sandwich tonight. A luscious chicken liver pate and a pickled daikon (white radish)-carrot salad were the condiments I piled onto banh mi Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches. What serendipity to glance upon Ivy Manning’s “Mushroom Banh Mi” recipe in this week’s FOODday section of The Oregonian. It just so happens I had made up some of her daikon salad (from her Farm to Table cookbook) last week.

Then there was the pate I made up for my parents, with velvety, foie gras-like livers from Kookoolan Farms. When defrosted, they were as good as fresh. It didn’t hurt that we amped up the recipe with chanterelles and leeks from the garden instead.

So I corrupted Ivy’s vegetarian sandwich, spreading pate on the baguette under the ’shrooms. But that’s the way we like to eat: with meat as a condiment. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

Luscious livers.

Bahn Mi with Mark Bittman's Soba Salad (go easy on the mirin in the dressing).

Herbaceous and fragrant, this syncretic sandwich is sweeping the Pacific Northwest and country-at-large. We love our little Baguette cafe here. And wild, hybrid versions of banh mi have surfaced in Washington and New York. But making your own isn’t difficult. It’s a great way to pay homage to two great culinary traditions, Vietamese and French. This is one edible positive to emerge from the scourge of colonialism.

Reading part of David Tanis’ a Platter of Figs and Other Recipes recently, I started feeling sad that summer is on its way out, and that it’s going to be another three seasons before figs, tomatoes, corn, and zucchini blossoms come back in season. I suppose I should just accept that reality, and acknowledge the fact that I did enjoy summer food for all it was worth this year, from the zucchini blossom and anchovy pizza to the end-of-summer meal I had with my in-laws the other night.

Steak and potatoes may sound more like comfort food for a cloudy, rainy day, but on Friday it was just the thing to celebrate this late-summer sunny weather. In fact, I think that depending on how one prepares it, steak and potatoes can be a meal fit for any season.

I found a recipe for potatoes and chanterelles with dill in Kitchen of Light, a book of new Scandinavian recipes by Andreas Viestad. With grilled steak and a simple salad, it was a kind way to celebrate the end of summer and welcome in the fall.

The whole menu:

• Grilled steak (seasoned with olive oil, Salish salt from a great store in Walla Walla, sea salt, and just a light dusting of freshly ground black pepper)
• A Scandinavian potato and mushroom dish (recipe follows)
• A simple green salad with a dressing of extra virgin olive oil, champagne vinegar and salt
• Goat cheese cake with mango syrup and honey (a recipe I must share with you soon)

In the midst of preparation, I forgot the corn on the cob. I also forgot to take photos. So, the aftermath will have to suffice. (It looks deceptively clean, but trust me when I say that the kitchen is still a mess, and that the hand-washing is only a fraction of the way done. But a special dinner with fine china is always worth the work.)

Without further ado, here’s the recipe.

Potatoes and Chanterelles with Lemon and Dill
Adapted from Kitchen of Light

2 pounds new potatoes or small Yukon gold potatoes (or any small potatoes)
1/2 to 3/4 pound chanterelle mushrooms*
3-4 tablespoons butter
salt
3 garlic cloves, pressed
Several sprigs of fresh dill, leaves coarsely chopped
Small handful of parsley, leaves coarsely chopped
Juice of one lemon

Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender, then drain. In the meantime, clean and trim mushrooms, then cut in halves or quarters, depending on their size. Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a large skillet, then add mushrooms, stirring occasionally until tender. Season with salt and garlic to taste, cooking some more, just until the garlic looses its sharp edge. Combine the potatoes and mushrooms in a serving bowl with chopped dill and parsley, more butter and salt to taste, and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Serve.

*The original recipe calls for 4-1 potatoes to mushrooms, but I’d prefer a higher percentage of mushrooms. Depending on how much you and your guests like mushroms, you may even want to try using equal parts.

It’s been raining a good deal recently and it has crossed my mind that a mushroom hunt might make a good NOadventure(it sure did). First off, I am a big fan of fresh mushrooms. I often look at all the weird ones that grow in my neighborhood after a storm and wish I had more knowledge about their edibility. Fancy mushrooms cost a king’s ransom at Whole Foods, so I usually get my exotics at HONG KONG MARKET. A cool fall/winter activity might be getting a bunch of fancy mushrooms and crusty bread and making a fondue. Sounds tasty.

There are all types of edible mushrooms in the wilds of south Louisiana. I don’t know if you will find any morels…

…but there are definitely chanterelles(I hear they taste like chicken when pan-fried) on the northshore(and cubensis mushrooms just about everywhere). [UPDATE: I found chanterelle mushrooms in my fucking backyard after a 3-day rain.]

Our mushroom hunt began in “the Parrish.” Check out the beautiful Oak Alley.

We had to pass through the 9th ward to get there though.

We parked in a neighborhood and found an ATV trail into the woods.

There was plenty of wildlife on the way like crab spiders…

… some rabbits, a fox that was too fast for my camera, and these gigantic grasshoppers.

They were extremely docile so I grabbed and befriended  them. Enough about animals, we were hiking ahead in search of mushrooms. Let’s cross this cattle-guard!

There were bones everywhere!

Then we found some cows resting in the shade.

Sometimes mushroom hunting is a lonely job.

The grass was really high, so the conditions were less than ideal. All we harvested was one lousy mushroom. We should’ve come early in the morning instead of so late in the afternoon!

On the way back to the city we stopped at a taco truck and met some kids from NY2NO. They come down here every year from New York to rebuild houses.

I gave them some NOadventure stickers.

Even this guy got one(he also one First Prize for “best jobless weirdo to hang out around a bunch of kids at a taco truck all day.”

My fridge is bursting with ’shrooms!  They’re being crushed beneath each others’ weight, forcing the half-and-half to sweat and fade on the counter, keeping me up late at night, challenging my imagination and culinary stamina.

What to do with a basketfull of Black Trumpets?

…or a bag’s worth of Eastern chanterelles?

Perhaps a breakfast omelet of local duck eggs, chanterelles, caramelized onions and cheddar:

…and a dinner of black trumpets and chants with garlic, white wine, basil and a crumble of Gorgonzola, served over fresh lobster raviolis:

… prime examples of my Hundred Yard Diet, being largely from my garden and the nearby woods.

If anyone has a pickling recipe for a shopping bag’s worth of Oyster mushrooms, I’d be more than happy to entertain it, as my half-and-half needs a place to stay…

by Soft Cell is today’s song. Most people know about their Tainted love, but not about all their other amazing tracks with interesting and different lyrics. This one I found quite fitting at the moment. For me, every autumn comes with depression. I don’t know why but the autumn really drags me down, every year. I start thinking about things I should do, obligations. How short life is, how hard it is. How I miss my old life, my life in Japan, my childhood. In autumn times, the future seems incredibly dark, and sometimes like it’s not planning on coming at all. Like my life has ended already. My peak has passed.

And the reason to why this song is so suitable, is because I know that it’s me in my mind, taking out these dangerous and negative feelings that makes me fall apart. It’s something I have always done. And this year, it is extra hard, since I have moved away from my secure Japan and all my friends there. I think about all the hard studies I have ahead and what I would have to do if I would fail or chose to quit, instead of thinking about all the fun I will have at uni and what an amazing career I would have ahead if I really started liking what I do.

However, I am starting to know myself. I know my flaws, I know how I react in different situations and that fear and uneasiness could be the product of irrelevant thoughts that I am making up for nothing. To be aware about problems, that’s a start. Then to process and heal them, that’s the next step. There are some good ways of turning rainy sad autumn days in to something good and bright. Like mushrooms. Tasty mushrooms to be picked in a beautiful forest, filled with yellow and red leaves. Chanterelles are the best. First of all, they are tasty. Also, there are plenty of them. And another important feature of theirs is that there is no chance you could take them for being some other kind of mushroom. In other words, you wont risk die of liver failure just because you eat shrooms from the forest next door. As for how to cook them, the best way is without any doubt to fry them with butter, a little salt and pepper. First all the water will come off, but if you are just patient enough the water will turn into vapour, and after some minutes the chanterelles will turn golden brown. Serve them warm on a piece of dark bread with butter. Yummie!

Another amazing thing to do in the chilly autumn is to go visit your lovely cousin and have a cup of tea accompanied by some delicious macarons that she just purchased in Paris. This is to be done while talking funny nonsense, discussing happy memories and great futures to come while maybe doing some studying. In that way, studying will be connected to something good. Well, the point is to make good things happen. To keep the good mood and ignore pointless negative thinking. There is really no bad sides of that. Really. Well, I will try and do some outfit blogging sometime soon. I have an awesome new APC top that I love, and I think you would think the same.

Here’s the thing, my dad is awesome. He is not only a super cool guy, he also cooks the best food you will ever eat. I have asked him to write a weekly blog about his cooking adventures, which always demand quality ingredients, such as grass-fed beef, local vegetables (or in his case, garden fresh), or even wild ingredients, as in this recipe, in which he uses Chanterelle mushrooms that he found in one of his gardens.

I call him Dad, but you can call him Chef Steve.

I found these lovely Chanterelles in my dooryard garden. They inspired me to make a chicken fricassee. I chose Coq au Vin from Julia Child’s, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” because my friend Ann said she could not deal with all the butter and cream in a white fricassee. I flash pan fried the Chanterelles. Prepared browned onions, Dutch baby yellow potatoes, and haricot verts.

I forgot to take a presentation picture. Imagine the moist plump breasts surrounded by browned onions and potatoes, flash fried Chanterelles, haricot verts and finally the reduced gravy liberally ladled over the top of the chicken. Throw a handful of fresh Parsley on top and VOILA! Bon appetite! Mange bouquet!

Note: Morel Mushrooms and Chanterelles are easily recognized in the wild. They have unique shapes and characteristics. Remember to pray to the mushroom devas when you pick to insure the mushrooms return (per my friend Ann).

Chef Steve

After a crappy Spring/Summer wild mushroom season, we entered September with a flourish.

A flash of color and a stop along the road on the way home from work yesterday yielded a cornucopia of fungi, beginning with a tender bloom of Laetiporus sulphureus (or Sulphur Shelf, if you don’t naturally go around speaking Latin) :

These will be great in curries and stir-frys!

And all around and along the way, there were ’shrooms of other genera begging me to eat them.

Some will get their wish!*

* That’s a pretty clear example of Man being the center of his own universe, non?

Anyway, here’s part of the haul.  Clockwise from the upper left:

A nice fat (unidentified) coral, some beefy Chicken of the Woods (Sulpher Shelf,) a mess of nice Winter Chanterelles, Cahtharellus infandibuliformis,  some black trumpets , or Horn of Plenty if you will (Craterellus cornucopioides) on the right, surrounding what a local vendor calls “chocolate boletes,” but despite his assurances I’m not eating them until I can put a real name on them, then bottom center, some Hedgehog Mushrooms, Dentinum repandum,  which I’ve since dispatched in a sauté, followed leftward by a beefy bunch of Eastern Chanterellles, Cantharellus cibarius, and on the far left, one of several Green Russulas,  Russula aeruginea,  which I may or may not eat.

Oh, and in the muddle are two King Boletes (Boletus edulis,) the prize of the lot.  Delicious anyway they’re done, though I’m leaning toward butter and garlic, perhaps over pasta.

Stay tuned.