After those rains we had the other week Scott was itching to go mushroom hunting along the Sonoma coast. The first time I ever heard mention of this Scott fellow was from some mutual friends who said that their friend was going mushroom hunting that weekend. I was fascinated, who was this mysterious mushroom hunting guy? Well fast forward a year or so and there I was with him accompanying him after each first fall rain and every spring into the woods along the coast.

You have to put your mushroom eyes on to see them. They grow up under the grasses many times so you have to train your eyes to be able to see these slight bumps in the ground. I was never very good at spotting them, so I mostly went along for the scenery and the fresh ocean/mountain air. Now that we have a house full of chores and two young boys who put everything in their mouths, our mushroom hunting days have dwindled. I’m not quite ready to teach the boys that picking wild mushrooms and eating them is okay. They are too young to understand that some could kill them and some are just fine. We’ll wait a few more years for that.

But Scott went with a friend. They went a full week after the rains which was a little too long to wait. He found lots of cut off white porcini stumps from previous hunters and the ones that were left had many bug bites, but he did get a few. We haven’t eaten these yet, but we are looking forward to nice risotto and porcini dinner sometime soon. And if you don’t see a post from me in a while….well, then maybe you should call poison control for us, would you? Thanks.