Monday, October 18, 2010

Delicious goldens

After a couple of jam packed weeks of work (kaiserslautern, stockholm) and then gallery grant writing and opening, I finally got to return to the woods a bit this weekend.

Saturday, Julie and I went to a socially conscious fashion show at Codman Farms in Lincoln. All she had to say was "Lincoln" and I was there. The fashion show at a farm bit didn't hurt either, because that just sounded weird and fun. And it was. They gave away free white turnips which no one was taking so I took two batches, but the real foraging happened when I arrived and immediately, momentarily, ditched the event to look in the trees for a chicken mushroom. I found a little guy about 15 feet up after walking for 10 minutes, and banged it down frantically with a stick .. so I could get back and not miss the cat walking.

The next day Anna and Rob joined me to Lexington and Concord for a walk through the Minuteman National Park. We hunted and hunted for mushrooms, without much luck (been saying for a couple years now, I really should learn the russulas, there's always plenty of them in these woods and I know people eat them, even though the Boston Mycological Club steers everyone away from them). Did get lots of nice evening primrose roots though, and sour fish (sorrel) and a few autumn olive berries. Then towards the end (it seems like this often happens -- God finally feeling bad for me and throwing me a bone) we scored a bunch of puffballs and an Agaricus. The puffballs weren't great in the kitchen, but the Agaricus was. But, I enjoyed that one solo since it seems a riskier mushroom to impose on people.



The day after I got back from Europe, although not feeling great, and riding on some Benedryl because of some nasty rash that would take over my body for an hour or so and then vanish without a trace (was it those oddly juicy elderberries I found in
Stockholm?) I decided to check out the two great looking apple trees just over the barbed wire fence at the waste water treatment facility by my house. It was a difficult fence jump given my state, but worth it in terms of fruit quality. Someone years ago must have decided to beautify the waste water treatment facility with a couple of really nice apple trees, a golden and a red. Slightly weird choice (Cambridge doesn't put apple trees in public parks, but they will throw them behind huge fences) but, fine by me. I did almost deck myself hopping back over the fence -- benedryl clumsiness - but the apples are great. Particularly the goldens. Delicious.

There were about 30 loaves in the savvy's dumpster the other night. It was painful.