Party December 7^th

The next meeting will be a party.

Join members of the SDMS for our annual potluck party. It will be held at the usual meeting location, Room 101 at the Casa Del Prado, December 7th at 6:00 p.m.

Dig out your favorite recipes with wild or cultivated mushrooms or other good things.

Soft drinks and coffee will be provided. If you want something stronger, please bring your own. Pack out what you pack in, we should leave no trace - no bottles, caps, corks or whatever in the trash.

Festivities will include a "white elephant" gift exchange. You may go home with the Harley Barnhart memorial spoonholder.

Now is your chance to get rid of that awful gift that has been gathering dust in the closet ever since someone completely unfamiliar with your taste in household objects gave it to you years ago. Wrap it up and bring it to the party for the "Most Awful" gift exchange. Trading will be allowed, or possibly encouraged, just in case your white elephant turns out to be the apple of someone's eye. De gustibus non disputandum!

No RSVP is required, and nobody is organizing the food. It always seems to work out well enough, so bring whatever you like. Remember to label your dish as vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, or any other category of possible interest. If you include wild mushrooms, please identify the species used.

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Annual Election

We have new officers for 2010! They are:

• President - Sam Andrasko
• Vice President - Eric Piehel
• Secretary - Laura Hershey
• Treasurer - Pat Nolan

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Mushroom Dinner November 17

We anxiously await a full report from one of the lucky attendees.

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Fungus Fairs Coming Up Like Mushrooms

San Francisco - December 5-6

On the first weekend of December the MSSF will have their annual Fungus Fair. The Lawrence Hall of Science stepped up to host this always popular event. In the San Francisco Bay Area, when the first rains tease up the chanterelles and porcini, fungus lovers head to the Fungus Fair: A Celebration of Wild Mushrooms. The Fair provides information on the uses and abuses of fungi, with displays and exhibits on ecology, toxicology, and cultivation. Arrays of identification tables display locally collected mushrooms. Campsite gourmands learn how to serve up the safe and scrumptious species through identification tutorials, cooking demonstrations, and sales of recipe books, soups, snacks, and fresh edibles. Watch renowned Bay Area chefs prepare dishes like matsutakes & roasted cauliflower in coriander cream or sautéed caramel candy cap pears and dentelles. 10 am to 5 pm both days.

Santa Cruz - January 9-10

Come to Santa Cruz and visit the kingdom of Fungi! Learn about the hundreds of fascinating species of local fungi on display in an indoor forest. Discover the “fun” in fungus!

The 36th Annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair will be held at the Louden Nelson Community Center. Sponsored by the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Museum Association, the fair draws 2,000 plus visitors each year.

Highlights include lectures by prominent mycologists and basics of mushroom identification in our popular Mushrooms 101 class. Learn about medicinal properties of mushrooms from renowned herbalist Christopher Hobbs, or ask an expert to identify a mushroom from your back yard. Epicures will appreciate cooking demonstrations by chefs and authors Jack Czarnecki and Jozseph Schultz. Children will enjoy many hands-on activities in the Kids Room.

10:00 to 5:00 each day!

Los Angeles - February 13-14

26th Annual Los Angeles Wild Mushroom Fair
February 13-14, 2010 (Saturday-Sunday)
Ayres Hall at The Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden in Arcadia
(301 North Baldwin Ave., Arcadia)

Featuring Wild Mushrooms in natural habitat displays, mushroom collecting forays, mushroom cultivation and cooking demonstrations, illustrated presentations and mushroom-themed vendors.

San Diego - February 21

And of course our very own fair in February. Forays on the 20th, Fair on the 21st.

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SOMA Wild Mushroom Camp 2010

January 16-18, 2010 (Sat-Sun-Mon) Martin Luther King weekend.

Online registration is NOW AVAILABLE! Take advantage of our "Early Bird Registration" to save some money before November 30th!!!!
Just go to: www.somamushrooms.org

For the 13th annual SOMA Wild Mushroom Camp we are planting a theme: Trees and Mushrooms.

There is so much to enjoy! Mushroom forays, gourmet mushroom cuisine, classes & workshops on: mushroom identification, cooking, dyeing, felting, polypore paper-making, medicine making, photography, cultivation, and much, much more!

Our delight is further assured with featured speakers: Tom Bruns on Saturday evening and Tom Volk on Sunday night.

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Mushroom News

Bad News

Three hospitalized in San Francisco after eating poisonous mushrooms
SAN FRANCISCO — Three members of a Lodi family have been hospitalized in intensive care after eating wild mushrooms.

A spokesman for California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco said the victims were hospitalized after eating Amanita phalloides, better known as "death cap" mushrooms.

Read more here and here.

Good News

• Stalking the Single White Truffle
• Italian Truffle Dinner 2009
• Truffle Season, It Is Here
• Rustling up Truffles
• Smells like truffle season
• Foraging For Mushrooms
• Organised crime mushrooms as French fungi trade becomes lucrative
• DVD on mushrooms could save a life
• It’s mushroom season along the North Coast

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Mushroom Views

• Gary Lincoff on Martha Stewart
• Spore Ejection
• Videos of spores
• Mushrooms from Coffee Grounds

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What’s Cooking!

Fungi As Food

Some French Recipes

Cultivated Morels

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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