Nicole Is Cooking

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The picture pretty much says it all.

On October 7th, Fantôme Chocolat and I went to the Mycological Association of Washington 2007 Mushroom Fair at Brookside Gardens. The picture is Fantôme Chocolat decked out in his ’shrooms shirt he got from Far West Fungi when we went to San Francisco in May 2006 and holding our door prize from the raffle- a bunch of pom pom mushrooms that we had for dinner that night.

Fantôme Chocolat and I both enjoy mushrooms (and truffles, but they didn’t have any there). I did snap some shots of the various mushrooms around, but most of the time we drooled over the mushrooms they were cooking. Since we weren’t members, we couldn’t sample. The neatest thing was watching them cook up the huge puffball that was foraged in the garden. If you slice it just right, you can cook it like a crepe and fill it with other mushrooms!

One of these days, I hope to go foraging with some of the people from the group. Unfortunately, this was not the year for it due to drought conditions in this part of the country. I was also just reading in the Organic Cook’s Bible that Fantôme Chocolat’s family gave me for Christmas that some varieties of mushrooms are a good indicator that wild asparagus might be growing nearby… what a yummy foraged dinner that would be!

In the mean time, enjoy the pictures from the festival! (I think I got all the captions right.)

Chicken of the Woods

I can’t remember what this one is.

Hen of the Woods

I can’t remember what this one is.

Some cooked mushrooms.

The puffball found at the garden and the subsequent slicing shots.