Champignons Galore

Hayis Mayıs 22, 2022

Several years ago, right before we started building our house, I had fallen in love with and purchased this 'vintage' French scientific study of mushrooms at Anthropologie, and immediately had to pack it up and send it away to our storage unit, along with all of our other belongings until the completion of our home would allow me to finally enjoy it properly in all it's colorful and curious glory.

Also around that time, I purchased another mushroom laden treasure at Anthropologie, this one being a ceramic pot painted with beautiful fungi specimens...it too was packed away and taken off to storage.

Well due to extenuating home building circumstances, we ended up moving out of the place we had been living for two years where we had only taken the bare essentials with us, to a much more spacious abode that allowed us to get a few things out of storage to make the place feel more like 'home'. Needless to say...the mushroom treasures were one of the first items brought to our new, temporary cottage and since then (another two years) we've been happily able to enjoy them.

Once the house was finished, I immediately knew that I wanted the picture to go above the fireplace on the dining room side where it would be visible from the kitchen and be at home amongst the rocks and reclaimed wood that will *one day* be our mantel. For now though...it's just propped up in the general vicinity along with some other items, pot included, that are still awaiting their proper placement.

I never really had a thing for mushrooms, I had just loved the artwork and detail on both items, but since having them to look at everyday...I've really come to admire these delectable, unusual beauties and would love to see more varieties, if they still exist, in our grocery stores.

Can you imagine coming across these lovelies in the produce aisle...would you eat them or just pile them up in a bowl and display them on the dining room table, or even on a window sill?

Last week...our local grocery store decided to display several varieties of the glorious little morsels in a few very stunning and thoughtful displays that quite impressed me.

They brought in rocks, moss, branches, bark....

and of course, the ever popular, mushroom loving - Fungisaurus!!

All enhancing the mushrooms strange and earthy natural beauty.

These are Lobster mushrooms...they definitely have the color, I wonder if they also taste like lobster...I'll have to give them a try sometime.

These next two images I'm dedicating to my mother...who's love of the sweet Chanterelle, or Pfifferlinger as she like to call them (their German name), is legendary. Here in the Pacific Northwest they are quite abundant and we are fortunate to be able to purchase them frequently, and at a very low price I might add.

Cooking with mushrooms adds such a meatiness and wonderful depth of flavor to so many dishes and it's applications are endless. When I saw this tart in the last October issue of Martha Stewart Living...I thought it was one of the most beautiful and creative uses of mushrooms I had ever seen and I am determined to make it very soon. I'll let you all know how it comes out.