Holidays and afterwards

There hasn't been that much to this holiday season. The highlight for me was probably a mushroom hunt up in Marin a couple days before Christmas. It had been rainy and warm, just how fungae like it, for several days, so it seemed very promising. We drove up to some woods in Marin, and I have never seen so many mushrooms in my life. The forest floor was littered with mushrooms, both in quantity and in variety, many things I'd never seen before outside a mushroom guide: cup fungae, jellies, conks, corals, and the russulas! if they had decided to attack, we'd have been dead in minutes. Also, the forest was magical with the fog drifting through the tall trees, little streams cutting across the paths, meeting other people only very occasionally. For all that, there wasn't much in the way of prized edible species. We found some young chanterelles which were delicious in a pasta meal for two, but the main edible turned out to be shrimp russulas (R. xerampelina). They were in dense clusters of large mushrooms all over, and we were limited only by what we could carry. Also, I had never positively identified shrimp russulas before, much less eaten any, so I was rather wary about collecting large amounts, especially since I believe that some similar-looking russulas can be vomit-inducing. However, that night, we cooked up a few with the single (although very pretty) coccora (Amanita lanei) we found, and they were both delicious. Moreover, neither of us had any digestive issues with them, so the next day we put a whole bunch of the most "typical"-looking shrimp mushrooms in a rice pilaf to take to the family Christmas dinner on Christmas eve.

While on Thanksgiving, everyone came over to our place, for Christmas, everyone went over to the parents' house. In contrast to a relaxed and gluttonous Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner seemed to me rather cramped and tense. But as far as family duties go, it was hardly onerous. There were no mushroom poisonings that night, either.

Now, the holidays are finally past, and the rain is gone for the moment. Both seemed kind of stifling this year, mushrooms or no, and I'm glad they're over.