Magical Mushrooms

Autumn is the hubs’ new favorite season, and for good reason. Fall rains bring MUSHROOMS! We love foraging together as a family. It’s a bit like a scavenger hunt in nature and i have just as much fun taking photos of the inedibles as we do in harvesting the edibles.

We found one small and rather punky Bolete (Porcini) and what we think is a dyer’s polypore which I plan on dying some yarn with to see if it does in fact stain yellow. The Porcini is destined for some cream of mushroom soup! Remember to NEVER EAT a mushroom you cannot positively identify, and then never eat raw. Mushroom foraging should always be done with an experienced forager or a really good guidebook. We always carry a “hip guide” with us and have several larger books at home for more in depth research. In the Pacific Northwest, David Arora is the man and i highly recommend his books:

Bringing home the mushrooms is great fun, but so is the scrambling around in the moist, lush, magical Oregon wilderness. Foraging is really just an excuse to play around like a couple of children and get our hands dirty. Don’t forget to look up every once in a while, there’s magic in the trees as well.

Wild apples, mushrooms, nuts and more – what do you forage for?