Category Archives: foraging for wild edibles

Spring in the Berkshires

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There are many things we love to do when we’re up in the Berkshires. Taking hikes is at the top of the list. It is still a bit early (snow and mud on the ground) to go on the more ambitious hikes, so we decided to take a simple walk along Ice Glen road. At the end of the hike we ran into a woman walking with her puppy. We stopped to talk with her and discovered that she keeps chickens and raises or grows all her own food. She also has a flock of alpacas and spins and weaves the fiber. I mentioned that I spin and she invited us to walk over to her house, where she gave me a trash bag full of her alpaca fiber.

It was crazy how much we had in common with her. She mentioned that she has a son who’s a photographer in Brooklyn. But what put me over the edge was when she said that I could dye the white alpaca and mentioned that she picks wild mushrooms to dye her fiber. She uses turkey tail mushrooms to dye her wool blue. I’m going to have to keep my eye out for them this year.

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My new challenge is to process the fiber. I usually buy fiber that has already been washed and carded. I am going to borrow equipment from someone in my spinning group to card it. I’ll post more when I work on the fiber.

I am excited by this new challenge. It was so unexpected to meet such a nice woman and come away with gorgeous, soft alpaca fiber.

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Belated Birthday Post

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Okay, it’s bad when you are belated on your own birthday!!! But I’m so behind on everything that I thought I should just start here.

On my birthday, Neil and I decided to play hookie. It was a little drizzly, so we just put on the rain gear we bought for our trip to Iceland and went for a hike. There is a park in the middle of crazy, urban Queens, NY called Forest Park. And it is just that. A forest. It’s really a weird feeling to be walking in the woods knowing that you are in the middle of NYC.

Neil and I started learning about and hunting mushrooms last year. We’ve been lucky enough to find some delicious edible mushrooms. However, we were disappointed last Fall not to find hen of the woods (aka maitake). They generally grow under oak trees in the Fall. As we walked, we kept our eyes open for these mushrooms, and were lucky enough to find a few clumps of them.

They are beautiful mushrooms without poisonous look-alikes, which makes them quite safe for beginners. (Okay, now I must add that if you are ever going to hunt mushrooms, please consult a guide, an expert, or both. Do not go off the photos on this blog!!) These mushrooms have been described as resembling flamenco dancer’s skirts. Love these colorful descriptions!!

I asked some of my mushroom friends how they prepare hen of the woods. We decided to pull them apart like broccoli florets, brush them with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper and grill them on the bbq. They were delicious. What a lovely birthday present!

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School Fundraiser

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I’ve been organizing a fundraiser at my daughter’s school in conjunction with Earth Day. We are selling oyster mushroom growing kits through Back To The Roots. If you order one, Back To The Roots shares a portion of the profits with my daughter’s school in Brooklyn.

My husband gave me one of their kits for Christmas and they are really fun. C’mon, you know you want to try this! Just make sure to enter “PS58” in the coupon code for the school to get credit. The offer expires on 4/20, which is our school’s Earth Day celebration.

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Birthday Weekend

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This past weekend was jam-packed with birthday fun. It was also a very mushroom-filled weekend. My in-laws gave me a pocket knife, and Neil gave me a collecting basket for mushroom hunting. On saturday morning, we christened both, by going to Stony Brook in  Harriman State Park for a walk with my mushroom group. The weather was spectacular and the leaves were just starting to turn golden.

We walked along a stream and found lots of mushrooms, including delicious black trumpets. With all the rain we’ve had, this summer has been one of the best for mushroom hunting many people can remember. This is my first year, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. Here are some photos from the walk.

That night we went to see Zarkana by Cirque du Soleil. The production was spectacular. I would love to go back several more times to absorb all of the layers of  scenery, costumes, performances, etc. If you can possibly go to see it, you should run now and get tickets. It was amazing. We got heavily discounted tickets, so were able to bring Lindsay. I think it blew her 7-year old mind.

Then Sunday, which was my actual birthday, I slept in. For those of you with young kids, you know how rare and wonderful this is. Neil cooked up the black trumpets with eggs and we had a nice breakfast. The day was beautiful, so we went for a walk in Prospect Park. Later that night, we met friends for dinner and came back to our place for drinks afterwards. It was a great weekend with family and friends and I felt very celebrated.

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Mushrooms at the Zoo

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Yesterday we went to the Bronx Zoo. If you haven’t been there, you really need to go. They work really hard to make realistic and livable habitats for the animals. It is a far cry from the concrete jail cells that used to be common in zoos. All the money goes to support wildlife recovery efforts, education, etc. You can spend the better part of the day there and still not see everything.

So while I love the zoo and the animals, I have been bitten by the mushroom bug. Seriously, I can’t walk down the sidewalk in Brooklyn without peering into people’s planters to see if there are mushrooms growing. This season has been quite rainy, so there are mushrooms popping up everywhere. Even in the cracks of the pavement you will see mushrooms forming.

I saw loads of interesting mushrooms at the zoo. Well over 20 different varieties. Sometimes it was hard to tell if a shelf mushroom was real or a realistic fake in an exhibit. I have been on the look out for hen of the woods mushrooms as they are being spotted in this area now. We were on a monorail ride and I thought I saw some down below. In the rhinoceros pen. It was a dilemma…for a second.

And yes, those are mushrooms in the photo above.

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Photos from Chincoteague

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As promised, here are more photos from our trip. It is starting to seem like a long time ago already, as the weather cools and daily pace speeds up.

Chincoteague is a forager’s paradise. You can’t throw down a wire cage without catching loads of crabs. Oysters and clams are abundant and I did see some mussels. Neil learned how to shuck oysters, which led to many nights of oysters on the half shell. Clams tossed on the bbq were a big favorite as well.

For anyone who read Misty of Chincoteague, you can visit Misty and Stormy at the museum. Stormy was still alive when I went there as a child. Somewhere there’s a photo of me being kissed on the cheek by Stormy.

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Finding a Chicken of the Woods Mushroom

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This past Saturday I went with my mushroom club out to New Jersey to look for mushrooms. I mentioned to the people I rode there with that I have been trying to find a Chicken of the Woods Mushroom (chicken mushroom for short). On the walk we found loads of boletes, which look a lot like how kids draw mushrooms. You might know them as cepes or porcini. Most of the mushrooms in the photo below are boletes.

We were also looking for chanterelles, which are a bright orange color. We found a few, although many were past their prime. We also found some Jack O Lantern mushrooms, which besides being poisonous, also glow in the dark. So when one of my car mates spotted something orange from the trail, we thought it was probably a group of Jack ‘O Lanterns. I was absolutely thrilled to discover chicken mushrooms. These tasty little mushrooms cook up to taste like chicken. What’s really nice about them is that when you find them, you really have a meal on your hands. There are also really no other mushrooms that look like these, so they are a very safe mushroom for beginner hunters like myself.

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Still hanging in there

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I thought it might be the heat, but after having a fever last night, I guess I actually am sick. I’ve been so run down lately that I have contemplated going back to sleep right after my first cup of coffee.

Although I haven’t been posting I have actually been doing things.

Mushroom Hunting (and eating)
Although we’ve recently gotten rain, it has been so stinking hot that there weren’t many of the expected mushrooms in the woods last weekend. This plant is called Indian Pipes and isn’t a mushroom. It is a plant that lost its chloroform through some weird evolutionary decision. It needs other plants (and that’s generally a mushroom called a russula) to bring it the nutrition it needs. There were no russulas to be found nearby. I did find some bright orange boletes that sautéed up nicely.

Knitting

I made this blue shawl for Lindsay. She’s going to be a flower girl this month and the bridesmaids colors are royal blue. You can find the pattern here.

We have friends who are expecting a baby girl in September. I made this sweet little cardigan for her. You can find the pattern here.

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Elderberry Syrup

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Elderflower syrup is one of those magical liquids that is a perfect mix of sweet and floral. It is the G-rated version of St. Germain. You mix a tablespoon or two with seltzer and you have a refreshing summer drink. Syrups aren’t as common here as they are in Europe, and therefore are generally pretty expensive. The one I have was brought to me by friends visiting from Austria.

With all the beautiful, creamy white blossoms popping last weekend, I decided to try making my own syrup. I did a quick search and found this recipe. It calls for citric acid, which I didn’t have on hand. I substituted a packet of EmergenC and hoped that it wouldn’t give it a strange flavor (which it didn’t).

You have to brace yourself for the insane amount of sugar used in the recipe. Also, I suggest having everything on hand, because elderflower blossoms are very delicate and start to wilt very quickly.

Recipe adapted from Hunter Angler Gardner Cook:

3 quarts water
entire bag of sugar
juice of 6 lemons
zest of 6 lemons
2 packets of EmergenC or 6 T citric acid (to prevent spoilage)
75-100 elderflower flower heads (I just filled the jars to the top) with the stems trimmed

Fill a bowl with the flowers, lemon juice and lemon zest. Heat the water and sugar on the stove until the sugar dissolves. Add the citric acid. Pour liquid into the bowl and stir.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and let sit for a few days. Strain the liquid through cheesecloth into clean jars.

Since our trip was ending, I didn’t have the time to let everything sit in a bowl. I put the flowers and lemon juice and zest into jars and poured the sugar syrup into them. I saved some extra syrup, which I used to top off the jars once I strained out the flower heads.

The flavor is nice and lemony, but I still prefer my expensive Austrian syrup. I have to figure out how to get more of the floral perfume to infuse into the syrup. I’m not too disappointed because I know that we will happily use up our homemade elderflower syrup.

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Elderflower Liqueur

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We just came back from our annual July 4th visit with friends up in Rhode Island. Every year at this time their elderflowers are blooming all along the roadsides. A couple of years ago I made french toast, where I dredged the batter-soaked bread in the blossoms. That was really good. This year we made various items including fritters, liqueur and syrup. I’ll post about each until you won’t want to see another elderflower!

Okay, so for the liqueur, it is ridiculously simple. All you need is about 20 flower heads, a quart jar and a bottle of vodka to begin.

• Carefully inspect the flowers for critters. My daughter was particularly good at spotting tiny inchworms and ants.
• Trim the extra stem off of the flower heads and drop the blossoms into the clean jar.
•Fill with vodka and store in a dark place for 1 month.
•After a month, strain out the flowers and mix in about 1/3 cup of sugar until dissolved.

My batch has only sat for 4-5 days, so while I wait, I’ll have to satisfy myself with St. Germain. Neil makes a great version of a cosmo using St. Germain instead of Triple Sec.
Another refreshing summer drink is 2 parts sparkling wine (proseco, champagne, cava, whatever) mixed with 2 parts seltzer and 1 1/2 parts elderflower liqueur.

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