Mushrooms: Nature's original pop up ads

All the storms and rains of September brought an extravagant crop of mushrooms this October, breaking records and making headlines. They popped up everywhere--even under my juniper bushes--and so did the revelations that several people I thought I knew well were actually avid mushroom hunters delighting in the moment. Mother Nature has tempted us to notice her.

Those of Polish and Russian heritage have been taking picnic baskets into parks and forests, staking a spot, and making a day of foraging and toasting their gains. Others are simply taking newly acquired books out to their back 40 and coming back to the kitchen with black trumpets, boletes, chanterelles and shiitakes, among other wild wonders prized by gourmets. Under my junipers according to a local expert mycologist were lowly slippery jacks, sullius americanus and granulatus.

So of course plenty of fungi have been on sale at farmers' markets lucky enough to have a mushroom vendor. And the variety is richer than ever, all of it already vetted as not poisonous. How easy is that? So now is the time, probably the last time until spring, to taste fresh, wild (i.e. organic as you can get) mushrooms.

What to do? If you're lucky enough to have chanterelles or black trumpets or real boletes (porcini), just saute them in a bit of butter to put slight crunch on them, sprinkle a pinch of good quality salt, and enjoy. Or share them with pasta and parsley.

Shiitake is Japanese for oak fungus, so this beloved edible is stellar in Japanese type preparations. Serve them with soba noodles, sesame oil, Tamari sauce and toasted sesame seeds. Or cook them with carrots, burdock root (gobo) in season now, and tofu in miso broth for a lovely soup. (You can even toss in a handful of chopped seaweed.)

For something more substantial, make a mushroom risotto using rice or farro or even pearl barley. Put diced celery, leek, fresh sage, a pinch of dried rosemary and thyme, and diced bell pepper of any color. (Hint: for a really rich dish use mushroom broth instead of water to cook the grain.) If you've got portobello mushrooms, the ones large as saucers, remove the stem and treat the underside of the cap as pizza dough: lightly oil the mushroom on both sides with olive oil, salt it, and pile on your favorite topping. Then bake at 450 for 15 minutes and serve a gluten free pizza.

To preserve mushrooms, you can dry them or pickle them or cook them into a soup or tart that will freeze.
And btw, since mushrooms push up out of the earth, they bring us minerals and vitamins we don't get from high flying plants.