My Mushroom Birthday

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we thought he was a creepy old man but he turned out to be a mushroom angel.

my intuition (and a tip from a co-worker) took us to what i knew as a pristine cross country ski trail in winter. my intuition turned out to be wrong and we found nothing but toilet paper, freeway noise and a deadly Amanita on this unremarkable forest road.

coming back to the car with 5 empty baskets, we passed an old man who had been sitting alone in an SUV parked behind our car. he was eating something over a bulbous belly covered by a stained white T-shirt. a thin crop of discolored hairs fluttered above his head. right as we were passing him he said "are you berry picking?" one of us answered "no we're picking mushrooms, but we didn't find any." The angel scratched his head and said, "i've seen the Japanese pick mushrooms up by the Silver pines." Minimal prodding revealed the way. We hopped in the car and 30 minutes later found our way up the mountains.

None of us were prepared for a hike. I wore soft leather shoes, great for walking on a flat mossy forest road but awful for climbing up a steep rocky hill. C carried her black leather purse and cell phone because the forest parking lot was littered with broken car glass from lot thievery. we had no food and all i ate for breakfast was a poppyseed bun and tea.

Given the hard and dry terrain (not good for mushrooms), three of us left our baskets in the trunk of the car giving up hope of finding anything, but resolving to enjoy a nature walk. Two hikers with large calves and bulky backpacks came down the nearby trail and informed us that it leads to alpine lakes...3 miles uphill. I started to complain about the crazy idea of hiking all that way with bad shoes and no breakfast when a couple of women on their way down told us that the dry rocky trail levels off in a shady forest half an hour up. they were wrong about the half an hour, but the false hope energized us.

along with the promise of a flat shady trail, blueberry bushes popped up right along our way. None of the other hikers that passed us on their way down had picked any of them! Sweet, fat, juicy berries just hanging over the path for the picking. We barely had to slow down to pull them off the bushes and drop in our mouths. We ate our way up until our tongues, lips and fingers were blue and we entered the pine forest at the top of the hill.

This is where the mushroom frenzy began. First there were the Russulas, then Di spotted the Butter Boletes, then a woman coming down the hill asked if I could identify a mushroom that she found. I said i can try and she pulled a foot long KING BOLETE out of her pack and then another! I tried to be calm and tell her that IT WAS A KING BOLETE!!! A Porcini, a Cepe, a Belyi...A FRIGGING BOLETUS EDILUS!!! only the best mushroom you can find (aside from a Matsutake).

She said there were more up the trail and that there was one that she tried to pull out but it wouldn't give. My heart began to thump faster and my eyes darted madly through the forest floor. The hunt was on. Minutes later, C spotted the biggest King Bolete that I've ever seen. It looked like a small bench and weighed at least 5 lbs. we had to take turns carrying it because it was heavy and cold.

Pretty soon we started to pitch the Russulas out of the baskets (just helping the spores spread) to make room for the Kings. At the top of the hill our baskets were heavy and the last great find was a Bear's Head. It was so big and our two baskets were so full that i could only take a small part of it. The giant King wouldn't fit in a basket and was carried by hands.

Carefully we made our way back down the mountain -- thanking the forest, the disheveled mushroom angel, the blueberries, the inaccurate women and the King Bolete lady along the way. Back at the house, we had a great birthday feast. B made a delicious Blackberry pie and Gi made me a felted bracelet.