Mad about Mushrooms . . .

In the Market for New Furniture - How About Furniture Constructed from Mycelium?

For more details, you'll need to contact Philip Ross of San Francisco or visit his website, www.philross.org.  But, in the meantime, here's some basic information to stimulate your curiosity and sense of design.

Mr. Ross incorporates mycelium, often reiche, grown on red oak sawdust from Northern California mills, into his hand-crafted furniture.  Sure, it sounds a little wacky, but he explains that "it's a versatile building material with many attractive qualities."  For example, he claims that mycelium is fire-retardant, compostable, plastic, a good insulator, healthy for humans to be around, and as strong, structurally, as concrete, adding that "I've shot a handgun at one of these and the network was strong enough to block the bullet - it only went in about 5 inches."  Now, let's hope that there won't be guns being fired anywhere near the mycelium furniture that you may acquire but, just in case, you now know what will happen.

Philip favors Ganoderma lucidum, commonly known as reishi,
for furniture making.  Notice how this specimen has grown
around a stick that was in its path. 

What's Been Happening in our April and May 2013 Mushroom World

Our first mushrooms of the year tend to be Giant Puffballs, which also happen to be one of our favorite mushrooms to eat.   These jewels are a delightful discovery, often nesting as bright, white globes in freshly sprung grasses and greenery. Typically ranging in size from a tennis ball to a baseball (and occasionally much larger, to basketball size on rarer occasions), they are easily gathered.  They have no apparent stem and can simply be lifted off the ground.  They're usually clean, with no leaf debris or dirt. 

We've found that these early fungal treats frequent warmer and dryer climates than Port Orford, and we typically dedicate a day or so looking for them on Mt. Hood late in April.  If successful  (and we almost always find at least a few!), the Giant Puffballs are particularly delicious when sliced or diced and sauteed in butter.  They're wonderful with meats, and make a great addition to egg dishes as well as sauces and soups, quickly soaking up the flavors of the ingredients around them.  They're prime candidates for dehydrating, and willingly sit on the pantry shelf in a sealed, air-tight container for years.  

It's a wonderful time of year to be wandering the woodlands of Mt. Hood, an ancient volcano that was named Wy'east by the Multnomah tribe.  Rarely do we encounter another human being or are we deafened by the sound of off-road racing engines in April.  It seems this time of year is just a little too early for the campers and bikers that frequent the trails and tracks.  Get much into May, of course, and it's a very different story.  This is the time to head for higher ground, if you're still seeking puffballs. 

This year's April was no exception, and our peaceful hunting grounds rewarded us with a nice collection of Giant Puffballs in an area dominated by ponderosa pines.  Steven gently placed them in a brown paper bag and then sauteed them later in the day as a special treat for the cooks who were preparing the dishes for the annual Hilaire's Wild Game Banquet at the Monarch Hotel, a charity event benefiting several Portland area children's services. 

We never cease to be
amazed by the mushrooms and majesty of Mt. Hood. 

Previously Unknown Truffles Recently Discovered in the Klamath-Siskiyou Region

Daniel Newberry's excellent article in the May 2013 Jefferson Monthly (The Members' Magazine of The Jefferson Public Radio Listeners Guild) entitled "Biodiversity on the Frontier" offered information on truffle discoveries in one of the world's most biodiverse areas:  the Klamath-Siskiyou region.

Scott Loring, an Ashland-based botany consultant, recently discovered a new genus of truffle and assisted a colleague in the identification of a second previously unknown truffle.  Both findings are expected to be published this spring.  At its most basic level, a truffle is an underground mushroom, with spores dispersed by the animals that eat them and disturb the soil, unlike the windblown spores of mushrooms.  Fungi, says Loring, are on the cutting edge of biodiversity.  "With truffles it's a relatively easy thing to find new species because nobody ever sees these things, they're all underground, so you actually have to get out and look for them, rake the ground."  You'll know a truffle, he adds, because they look "A bit like little potatoes, that at first look like a rock or a clump of dirt, and come in a whole rainbow of colors."

Truffles come in
a variety of sizes and shapes. 

Appreciating Gary Snyder's "The Wild Mushroom"

Poet Gary Snyder's "The Wild Mushroom" was carefully clipped from a newspaper many years ago by our dear friend, Paula, and tucked away in a trusted location for future reading.  Now that Paula's leaving town, we inherited the clipping and have decided to share its delightful lines with you. 

"The Wild Mushroom" was included in Mr. Snyder's 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of poetry, Turtle Island, and we believe it reflects both his Buddhist spirituality and his love of nature. 

In an essay published in A Controversy of Poets, an anthology of contemporary American poetry, Mr. Snyder offered this commentary on his art:   

As a poet, I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

I'm convinced that we mushroomers embrace Gary Snyder's values and hold them as truths in our own lives.  Wouldn't you agree?

 

A Challenging Season...

Only a few chanterelles have greeted us over the last couple of days as we prowled the forest lands in the refuge. We encountered a handful of golden and white chanterelles along with a lovely cluster of the tan and lavender colored pigs' ears, see photograph below. We also noticed a wide assortment of non-choice and/or non-desirable mushrooms, predominately russula and amanita.

Hearty pigs' ears are particularly nice in beef dishes. 

How The Mighty Have Fallen

One of the most astonishing discoveries we ever made while mushrooming was this polypore - what can I call it? Condominium? - on a tall Western Red Cedar snag on Mt. Hood several years ago.  Even though we showed the photos to several very knowledgeable mycologists, we were never able to identify it precisely, but this never bothered us much.  The fact was that it was by far the most impressive polypore - what? Colonization? - we ever saw and ever expect to see.

The fact that I am at a loss for words to describe this incredible fungus (a rare occurrence for me!) is a measure of how impressive it was.  But I somehow found words not long after we discovered it on the west (wet) side of Mt. Hood in 2007. 

Our conk condo as we discovered it in 2007. 

Mary and I have produced our own Christmas cards for many years.  They always consist of a photo I've taken, together with a rhyme (some of our friends call them poems, but they are always couplets, the only type of poetry I seem able to produce).  The rhymes attempt to tie the photo to the holidays in some way, sometimes more successfully than others.  Our cards have had a wide variety of subjects, including blacktail deer, Icelandic icebergs, a chipmunk eating a peanut offered him by a Santa impersonator (me), a red-shafted flicker picking overripe elderberries, a huge flock of Kenyan flamingoes, a lovely little water ouzel, some very handsome darlingtonias, a praying mantis, crab boats from Port Orford and one of Mt. Hood itself, complete with triple cloud cap.  In 2007, the polypore condo simply had to be the subject, and here is the photo, followed by the rhyme.

 

The photograph that accompanied our Christmas card. 

So far, it's been a pretty surprising mushrooming season!

Back in early September, we were unqualified in our optimism about the upcoming mushroom crop.  We naively declared, "It's a promising start to what could be a particularly good mushrooming season" on the southern Oregon coast.

We may have spoken too soon.

. . . . . . . . . .

We were gone most of September on an 1,800 mile drive around the United Kingdom, making a grand tour of Scotland (including the amazing Isle of Skye), Wales and England.  We visited small towns and large cities, pubs, distilleries, museums, parks and other points of interest.  Driving on the "wrong" side of the road while seated on the "wrong" side of the car took a bit of getting used to, but we managed it without  mishap, and saw people and places we'd never have seen any other way.  Everywhere we went, we were met with kindness and a welcoming attitude, and we were a little surprised to realize that to many of the people we met, our American accents were as interesting and charming as their lovely accents are to us.  We do hope that international visitors that come here to the U.S. are treated as well as we were.

We usually stayed at B&B's, feasting every morning on Scottish, Welsh and English breakfasts; the primary difference between these was what country we were in, as the breakfasts were essentially similar.  One exception to this was Scotland's frequent inclusion of haggis (the always useful Wikipedia defines haggis as "a savoury pudding containing heep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours"), and black pudding (which Wikipedia defines as "a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled").  These latter two items are, we reckon, an acquired taste; we did try them, but found them not to our liking.  One other interesting breakfast item that we encountered almost everywhere was canned "pork and beans;" while we like them, we've never thought of them as breakfast. 

Steven became quite fond of sauteed mushrooms on his breakfast plate, however, even though they appeared to be the usual, mundane white button mushroom.  A walk down the vegetable section of several grocery stores in the outlying areas revealed little but these button mushrooms.  When asked about mushrooms, most people simply answered that they came from Ireland.

Just one of many lovely Scottish vistas.

It's a promising start ...

"It's a promising start to what could be a particularly good mushrooming season."  That's my feeling about Fall, 2012 mushrooming on the southern Oregon coast.

We'd been hearing rumors and reading e-mails about how the chanterelles and lobsters were fruiting everywhere.  It wasn't until yesterday that we actually walked the property searching for fungi, and we were not disappointed.   White and golden chanterelles along with lobsters were easily spotted. 

We found a nice collection of perfect specimens! 

A Fabulous Oregon Grape Jelly Recipe & Information

Even I have my limits.  Every time I opened the top freezer door, two quarts of dark blue/purple Oregon grape berries (Mohonia nervosa) peered out at me, reminding me that I hadn't kept my promise.

On a lark, we'd picked them last fall on Mt. Hood, where the 2' high plants were growing in abundance across from a favorite white chanterelle spot.  They were so easy to pick; they virtually fall off the stem and into our buckets.  I had placed the washed berries in plastic quart containers and frozen them upon our return to Port Orford, mentally committing to make them into jelly at my earliest opportunity.  Days stretched into weeks as other priorities screamed louder.  And every time I opened that freezer door, I was reminded of my procrastination.

Saturday, I just couldn't stand it any longer.  Out came the berries. 

As a volunteer Master Food Preserver with Oregon State University, I naturally looked to OSU's leaflet, Preserving Foods:  Wild Berries & Fruits, SP 50-536 for a recipe.  Imagine my consternation when the instructions said to leave the berries on their stems!   We hadn't done that.  I made a few phone calls and sent a couple of e-mails but no one seemed to know why it was important to process the berries with their stems intact.  I proceeded to prepare the Oregon Grape Jelly recipe found in SP 50-536 without including their stems and the final product was fabulous!  The jelly is extraordinary - it's unique taste could be likened to an incredibly rich and intense blackberry flavor with citrus, spicy undertones.  We've tried the jelly on waffles and on toast, and the flavor of the jelly just exploded on our tongues.

 

Steven gives the Oregon Grape Jelly his seal of approval! 

Springtime Mushrooming and Photographing with the Taylors

How is spring mushrooming in our neck of the woods?  Unfortunately, our 2,000+ mile odyssey this spring pretty much removed us from the hearty group of springtime mushroomers.  While our journey was great and seeing old friends was wonderful, we feel the loss of hours spent in the woodlands seeking out morels and boletes.

Where have we been these last couple of weeks?  Well, it seems everywhere.  First, there was a workshop sponsored by SAAL in Monmouth to help organize VOICE, an organization whose mission is to engage communities by advocating for the rights of people with developmental disabilities.  From there we headed to Long Beach, Washington for a couple of days of vacation and to attend the awards ceremony at my old high school across the river in Warrenton, Oregon.  For the last 20+ years Steven and I, along with  my sister's family, have presented a small scholarship there.  It's in memory of and honor of my parents, who were long-time residents of this small northern Oregon coastal town.  This year, three outstanding graduating seniors received the award, tying a record.  After the event, we were off on a scenic drive up thru the Canadian coastal mountains to the town of Oyama in central British Columbia for a great, albeit short, visit with dear friends, Jim and Judy. 

We were inspired by Steve Trudell's class.