Potluck Party May 4^th

There is no meeting in May, we will have a potluck party instead.  Then we stop for the summer. The next meeting will be on October 5, 2009.

Jean Leighton will host the potluck again this year.  The festivities will start at 7:00 p.m. on May 4^th.  To our new members, if you have not seen the fabulous garden at Jeans, don’t miss this chance.

Bring a dish to share.  If your dish includes wild mushrooms, please provide a label identifying the species. 

Bring your own alcohol if desired.  Water, plates, plastic cups, silverware and napkins will be provided.

Address
1402 Willow Street
San Diego (Point Loma Area)
(619) 222-5360

Directions:

From most places, go to I-8 and head West till it ends.  Turn left on Sunset Cliffs, go a little way, and turn left on Nimitz Blvd.  Take Nimitz to Rosecrans, turn right.  Go past the Von’s and turn right on Keats.  Go up three blocks and turn left on Willow, and go about six blocks to 1402.

If you are coming via the I-5, there is no ramp to get on 8 West.  From the North, take the Sea World Drive exit and go West.  Sea World Drive becomes Sunset Cliffs, from there follow the directions above.

From the South, it is better to take Harbor Drive past the airport to Rosecrans, and turn left.  At the Von’s at Nimitz, follow the directions above.

If you get lost, call (619) 222-5360, after noting where you are.

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Fungi of the Sierra Nevada

May 31-June 5
The perennial class by Dennis Desjardin. The fee is $300, a real bargain for a week of classes and mushroom hunting with food and lodging. For more information and registration, see: http://www.sfsu.edu/~sierra/Course_Fungi.html.

Students will be introduced to the different kinds of mushrooms and other large fungi that occur in the spring in the Sierra Nevada (See SNFC species list). Emphasis will be placed on the analysis of macro- and micromorphological features, as well as ecological roles, to aid in the identification of taxa.

The daily class routine consists of an 8:00-10:00 am lecture followed by a field trip until approx. 3:00 pm. Transportation on the field trips will be by car pooling. Upon return to the camp, collections will be examined and identified in the laboratory (3:30-6:00 pm) in collaboration with the instructor and a knowledgeable graduate student assistant. All equipment, microscope slides, cover slips and reagents required for accurate determination of specimens will be provided. In the evenings, several lectures and slide shows will be presented, and the laboratory will be open for additional work on collections. If sufficient quantities of edible fungi are collected, they will be prepared for consumption and served to the class by the camp's chef.

Participants should plan to arrive Sunday afternoon, May 31, in time to attend an orientation lecture on Sunday evening at 8:00 pm. The last class meeting ends 12:00 noon, Friday, 5 June.

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Fungi in Folklore

An article from North American Fungi, August 2008 Frank Dugan on Fungi, Folkways, and Fairy Tales.

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Survey of Mushroom Club Members

Results from a national survey of mushroom club members.

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Slime Molds

Great pictures of alien creatures.

From Russia. The last picture is a time-lapse sequence, watch them grow.

From the Julian H. Miller Mycological Herbarium

From California

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Mushroom Views - Know Your Mushrooms

The new mushroom movie.

Reviews

Roxie

Films We Like

Clip

Gary Lincoff

Link

knowyourmushrooms.com/

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Morel Hunting

A sampling of the many articles that pop up around the country every spring in morel season.

New York

A long but good blog post about the conditions that favor morels in the east.

On NPR

A Morel Quandary? - Where To Find Them

North Carolina

A morel to this foray Hunting for the flavors of spring.
by Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt in Vol. 15 / Iss. 36 of the Asheville Mountain Express.

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What’s Cooking - Morels!

Fungi As Food

By Dave Grubb

(Partly repeated from April 2007)

Morels are sweeping the country, as they do every year about this time. The 2009 season has started in the southeast, and is working its way north. In Northern California, there are reports of finds in coastal areas. The higher elevations inland are still under snow. LAMS is hunting today (April 26) at Barton Flats, perhaps we will hear a report.

As the season heats up, you should soon be able to find morels at some local markets, and maybe at a few secret spots at higher elevations.

A search for a morel recipe for the month led me to many variations on a few themes:  fried, sautéed, sauced, and stuffed.  So, this will be “invent your own morel recipe” month.  Choose a category, select some variations, and try it out.  If it works, send it to me for another newsletter.

Fried

Works best for larger specimens, cut them in half or quarters.

Toss them in some sticky liquid to coat, like beaten egg, milk, beaten egg and milk, cream, or beer.

Next coat them with something crunchy.  Flour or corn meal are the simple options.  For variety, try crushing saltines, Ritz crackers, potato chips, corn flakes, or anything else that sounds good.  The easiest way is to put the crushed crunchy stuff in a bag with some seasonings, drop in some sticky morels, and shake the bag.

Experienced cooks may want to try a more complex variation involving batter.  Batter just means that instead of applying sticky liquid and then crunchy stuff, you mix one or more sticky liquids with one or more kinds of crunchy stuff, and then apply it all at once to the morels.

Fry until nicely browned in your choice of fat.  Bacon fat, butter, olive oil, peanut oil, or whatever comes to hand.  Turn once, gently, so you do not scrape off too much of the crunchy stuff.

Sautéed

The basic operation is simplicity itself.  Cook over medium to high heat, and keep the food moving.  The infinite variations are the accompaniments.  Butter, olive oil, grapeseed oil, or whatever.  Just enough to keep the food from sticking to the pan.  Any vegetables you have handy.  Meat if you like.  Toward the end, some flavorful liquid to loosen the browned bits and blend the flavors.  Best served with something to soak up the juices, like pasta or rice.

When choosing the vegetables for a sauté, lean toward the onion family.  Garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, and ramps all go well.  Green bell peppers also go well with morels, as do asparagus, fiddleheads, and various peas: snow, english, or mange-tout (aka sugar snaps).

Sauced

Sauced starts up where sautéed leaves off.  You do the basic sauté, then add more liquid, and thicken it.  Go lighter on the veggies, use them as seasoning rather than an ingredient.  When you would be finished with a sauté, add more liquid.  Wine is a good start, sweet or dry, red or white, bubbly or still.  Various broths also work: chicken, veal, beef, or veggie.  Or go wild and use more than one kind of liquid.  Reduce the liquid some, then thicken.  Approaches range from simple:  add sweet or sour cream; thru moderate: make a roux, combine sweet and sour cream; to complex: thicken with egg yolks, cooked just until they thicken but not curdle  Pick an approach that fits your culinary skills.

Stuffed

Morels look like they were made to be stuffed.  Most anything tasty would work, then bake until done.

Try combining seafood and cheese, or a savory sausage and crumbs, or leftover stew, or your favorite pizza topping.  It’s all good.  Some cheese on top never hurts.

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Bonus Morel Links!

The Great Morel http://www.thegreatmorel.com/recipes.html

Wild Harvest http://www.wild-harvest.com/pages/morel.htm

Muscoda Morel Festival Recipes http://grantcounty.org/ci/muscoda/recipes-index.html

Mykoweb Morel Recipes http://www.mykoweb.com/cookbook/morels.html

Two sources for a "Recipe of the Month".
BAMS, and MAMS

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Fungi of the Month

Now there are two "Fungus of the Month" sites:
Tom Volk's long-running series at : http://tomvolkfungi.net/.
And a new one at: http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/mushroommonth/index.html.

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SDMS Information