Mother of all Chanterelles * Los Trancos Trail * Buckeye Creek
*
Conditions (rains, temperature) must be right. AC and I went foraging for mushrooms a few times and came back with bags full. We usually pick chanterelles and avoid others. I have occasionally found oyster mushrooms on trunks of trees. They,too, are safe and edible. But the yellow chanterelles are what we look for under oak and redwood trees.


Part of a day's haul © RS

I cook risotto with chanterelles. Chanterelles, with diced potato, onions and thyme, also make excellent soup. You can add cream to give it richness; I use Half and Half. They are great, simply sauteed in butter with chopped chives and put on toasted french bread. And always good with eggs--scrambled or in an omelette.

Buckeye Creek among Oak, Madrone, and Bay Laurel Trees © RS

JHL at Buckeye Creek, January 2006 © RS

Last week JHL and I went hiking up Los Trancos Trail in Foothills Park. We stopped for a picnic lunch alongside Buckeye Creek. The sound of running water was soothing. The air smelled fresh, the trees and shrubs full of lushness. On the way back I saw a glimpse of yellow that didn't look like leaves. Went down the bank and it was the mother of all chanterelles ! Huge. Weighed almost 10 oz.

Mother of all Chanterelles © JHL
*
"Nothing exists; all things are becoming"
---Reiho Masunaga, The Soto Approach to Zen

Listening to: Billy's Bounce from the CD titled Tokyo '96, ECM Records 1998
Keith Jarrett - piano
Gary Peacock- bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums


Comments

Anonymous — 2006-01-15
That is truly one big, exquisite muthah, befitting the king of connoisseurs of the big and the exquisite. :) I wish I could rid myself of the urge to kidnap you and the other half and let you loose in Walmart for an hour or two, or your choice of whatever is the antithesis of the paradise in which you live. :) Perhaps it would be to be stuck in traffic listening to the morning news, but for you people there's always BART and NPR. :)

three very devoted bows,

f