Last weekend I drove north into Sonoma county with my mycological guru David Bourn. We were on the hunt for edible mushrooms after the recent rains. We stopped in a mixed Redwood/Douglas Fir forest just a mile or so from the coast and stomped off into the duff. It took me a while to get my eyes accustomed to finding the various mushrooms and other fungi poking their heads up through the rich litter or hanging from the sides of fallen or living trees. But once I did there was an incredible richness and variety within just a few hundred yards of where we parked the car. Heres a sampling!
Into the woods ...
David with a nice Coral fungus
Pig's Ears
Pig's Ears
These Pig’s Ears were everywhere! Rather hard and stiff but with beautiful taupe and salmon shadings. I found the same mushrooms today at Berkeley Bowl for $12/ lb.!! I guess we should have picked all of them.
The tiny, translucent Toothed Jelly Fungus
An almost electric, tiny, red Coral Fungus
The poetically named Earthstar
Classic form, but not for the plate.
The surprisingly edible 'snotty pus fungus' - actually a pat of 'Witch's Butter'
The pore pattern on the underside of a Boletes mushroom.
White Chanterelles peeking through the duff.
And at last the elusive prey reveals itself – the White Chanterelle
Yum!!
David sent me the link to this site which has great cooking hints and recipes for Chanterelles!
Tiny perfection.
If you want to hunt for your own this Fall and Winter there’s a great online guide here.
ENJOY!!
Chanterelles with red onions and homegrown cherry tomatoes on fresh spinach linguine
This is great!
Thanks for posting all these, it’s a nice collection. Just had a tasty bowl of chantrelle pasta. A few days in a brown paper in the fridge dried them out perfectly for cooking.
If you get really hooked on mushrooms you may want to pick up a copy of the guide book I use, “All That the Rain Promises and More” by David Arora. It’s the hip sized companion guide to the “Mushrooms Demystified” bible I showed you in the car. The little one is perfectly adequate for identifying the most common species.
I’m about to have the same.
The pig’s ears might have to wait for Sunday breakfast!
A friend, who’s an old time gatherer and someone who’s taught me about shrooms, just got back from Sea Cliff and really got almost no boletes. He said there wasn’t enough rain yet. I think these storms we’re having now will rectify that, if it doesn’t freeze. I’ve got a good story about finding morrels, but I’ll have to save it for a future phone call.