NPR hen nut special post

The other day on my annual fall visit to Mt Auburn Cemetery, in search of a chicken mushroom and some chinese chestnuts, I instead found a load of ginkgo nuts and the right type of pine tree for pine nuts. Not too much new to report on the ginkgo nuts, except to mention that if you are going to gather them and then jump in a friend's car, be careful not to step on any of the blue cheese-smelling fruits that surround the nut (the one nearest my fingertips in the picture). Blue cheese is being kind...these guys smell BAD.

The pine nuts were an exciting find, although the excitement wore off when I got home and cracked them open, getting quite sticky, only to recover 11 nuts. All the others were blanks. But, the ones that weren't were tasty! Here they are, all 11 of them. My Italian houseguest at the time ate about 6 of them.

And in case you missed the action about 1 month ago, hens were everywhere. I had gathered so many in early October that by late October I had assumed they were all done. Then I got a call from Brian in NY who had just stumbled upon some in a Brooklyn cemetery. Of course, I then had to get out of my cozy reading situation and venture out before dark. Not really expecting to find any right in the city, I took my best guess and headed towards Brookline, took a left down a street I never go down, and whoomp, double-take, brakes, 4 huge hens. I couldn't even take them all. Hen pickles, frozen hens, plenty of stir fries and them some. Two giants below:

These days...burdock and evening primrose are keeping my rice and lentils happy at lunchtime.