i was biking to school when i happened upon a bundle of boletes under a birch tree. right when i was pulling out my pocket knife, a woman came out of the house near the patch, looking at me suspiciously. i explained that i am russian and russians love mushrooms. she said "oh yes, i know about russians and their mushrooms." it turned out that she is a russophile and helped russian jews like me leave russia in the 80s. she worked for some refugee agency in NJ. we talked about poshlost, pasternak and visotski, she took some of the boletes to try and fry and even gave me a paper bag for the mushrooms. here they are -- so pretty.