A Load of Shitakes

John came into the kitchen Thursday with a bucket full of shitake mushrooms. A log that had been inoculated about five years ago and had done Nothing in all this time had suddenly produced this amazing flush. They were half covered in wet leaves and dirt so had to be washed a bit -- not a terrific thing to do to a mushroom but, in this case, necessary -- and spread out to dry.

I decided to prepare them for freezing by sauteing slices in butter with a bit of chopped garlic and a sprinkling of salt.

It took seven different batches to saute all the 'shrooms and the smell was heavenly!

We were having London Broil for supper so I saved the last pan full of mushrooms to go with that.

The rest were vacuumed sealed to enliven some winter meals.

Cream of mushroom soup, mushroom and barley soup, mushroom stroganoff, mushroom pizza . . . suggestions, anyone?

Fall Flush

A heavy rain together with warm days and we've been enjoying the Fall flush of mushrooms -- shitake mushrooms. I came home after my writing class to see mushrooms spread out on every surface in the kitchen and have been drying them for later use.

A few days later -- there were more and I managed to remember to  get a picture.

A nice little harvest, but nothing like the earlier one. Still, with a few garlic chives ...

two fresh eggs and a bit of butter . . .

l
some Cherokee Purple tomatoes on the side and I have a fine brunch.

  The winner of the drawing for a signed copy of THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS over at Poe's Deadly Daughters is Iil Gluckstern -- who needs to get in touch with me!

There'll be another chance to enter another drawing tomorrow~

'shrooms!!!

We have mushrooms! Remember those logs John inoculated back in late March? They're beginning to produce!! Here (above) we have six shitake and two oyster mushrooms, ready to go into a stir fry this evening.

Below, a flush of tiny oysters break through the paraffin that coated the plug of spawn and sawdust. We have regular oysters and blue oysters (so that's where the band Blue Oyster Cult got its name!) -- not sure which these are.

They have a strange beauty -- like tiny alien life forms bubbling out of the logs.

Below are the minute yellow crescents ( not much larger than a fingernail clipping -- I'm really asking too much of my poor camera) of Chicken of the Woods. I've never tasted this mushroom and look forward to seeing these reach eating size.

All these mushroom pictures made me think of the books about Mr. Thallo and the Mushroom Planet. The first one, published in 1954, was my introduction to science fiction. Charming, innocent fantasy about children from Earth visiting a planet where all life is fungoid.

No, it wasn't creepy at all -- it was, rather, a good way to introduce a child to the notion that a being very different from oneself isn't necessarily scary.