Thanks to the over 130 MSSF members that made our return to the Mendocino Woodlands this past November a truly wonderful weekend in the woods. It was a real treat to be back at camp with all the fantastic presentations, demos, food, weather and of course, mushrooms! A very special thanks to all the staff and volunteers that helped to organize and create another inspiring and educational mushroom event:
 
Camp Speakers:
Maria Morrow and Stephanie Jarvis
 
Camp Staff & Volunteers:
Alex Willmer, Andy Still, Brennan Wenck, Carol Reed, Curt Haney, Elissa Callen, Else Vellinga, Gayle Still, Jenna Hinshaw, J.R. Blair, Kameron Britton, Karen Rusiniak, Ken Litchfield, Maria Pham, Natalie Wren, Norm Andresen, Pascal Pelous, Phil Minnick, Raysheina de Leon-Ruhs, Sarah Ruhs, Stephanie Manara, Stephanie Wright, Tyler Taunton
 
Catering and Food Providers:
Good Thyme Herb Company and Far West Fungi
 
Stay tuned for an additional summary of the 2023 Mendo Camp weekend, with pictures and camp species list, in the January 2024 addition of Mycena News.
 
If you have any more feedback regarding Mendo Camp, please email David Gardella: mendodirector@mssf.org. We are always looking for ways to refine camp to continue to make it a marquee annual event for MSSF Members, so your thoughts and input are always appreciated!
 
Looking forward to seeing you back at the Woodlands and JDSF in November 2024,
 
David Gardella
MSSF Mendocino Camp Co-Director
 

(Repost from September 2015)

    So, there I was, getting my fix in the Oakland hills in hopes of scoring more Spring Kings after light rains. Find them I did, sparingly, but consistent: for this is summertime where the fungal living ain’t easy. But what happened to me over the next month was nothing short of being touched.
    There they were, right on one of my winter-time paths, and my eyes bulged with disbelief! So naturally I checked my phone for confirmation and it said it was indeed summer, months from November or December. “What the hell” I said, followed with a reverence for this little one I refer to as The Big Sweet, a.k.a. Candy Cap, a.k.a. Lactarius rubidus. Meandering about, I found a few more, and then the fix, as it surely does, became addiction: cast the net far and wide, search and respect, fall into this wonder.
    Some were small, some were large, and absolutely zero expletives were given by anyone else, for only tracks of deer, my king-bolete-hunting nemesis, were all I saw. Surely no Graybacks* have been here, I thought. Growing in their usual nesting spots I took only large ones, telling the little ones I’d be back. And back I came, walking the same routes again, and again, and again over a week, sometimes meandering, but gifted more. Yet the only tracks on the forest floor I found, the only expletives given, were by me and said king-bolete-hunting nemesis.
    After a couple of weeks, a feeling of exuberance encompassed me, knowing I was the only one here, repeatedly, and gifts were offered while I asked permission and gave thanks. I took the once little ones, and left the new little ones, telling them I’d be back. Over a solid month I walked, I scaled, I slipped, and I sweated over these routes, just as many of you do...except you were not here, only my king-bolete-hunting nemesis.
    I continued to watch the little ones grow to big ones, and I continued to tell the little ones I’d be back. They fruited, they spread, with no rain, and continued to gift me over and over. I frequently came home with respectful gifts, drying them on hardwood with sun kisses. This was no ordinary time, for it was not on private land, and a sense of elation enveloped me for this was a time where only I was here, and they gifted me as I nurtured their pattern with reverence.
    All in all, I filled just under three-quart jars of dried Big Sweet, just exactly when I needed it. I only had a 1/2-quart jar left to get me through to winter on my shelf, and that is never a good thing, rather a combination of anxiety and torture, coupled with concepts of apocolyptic rationing.
    I often state and know, The Big Sweet is by far the most underrated fungal relative of them all. Most amateur hunters and gawd awful foodies will emotionally vomit about The King, the Big Three of Chanterelles, and of course, the only mushroom that matters...The Morel. Yet, they don’t know the utter magnificence of The Big Sweet, and thank our lucky stars they don’t!
    During this month of reverential jubilation, from mid May to mid June, I felt as I was in my own garden, surrounded only by obesely-overfit joggers. No one giving anything but zero expletives about being in tree and poison bush and tick, for they were cardio-mongers preferring to stay fit on open trails. And my fellow hunters? Jaded summer depression must have overtaken you all! And I’m thankful, to say the least, about such psychological conditions! The Big Sweet touched me, blessed me, announced they will not be victim to the turmoil of human desire and concepts of changing climate. For they must grow, and holy hell, grow they did!

Mycologically yours,
Charles.
 
*Graybacks: those with locks of gray hair, backpacks, hiking boots and walking sticks. Usually seen with baskets in hand and driving a truck or Subaru. An intellectually superior mycological hunter: one to be feared, one to be respected.
 

(Repost from the Colorado Central Magazine - August 2004)

THIS FOURTH OF JULY, while most normal people were enjoying barbecues with family and friends, I went to check one of my favorite mushroom patches, which is above 10,000 feet on a certain mountain. The mushroom I like to hunt is the King Bolete (Boletus edulis) and here in the Colorado Rockies it grows in the high pine forests from late July through September.
 
Although I knew it was too early for anything to be happening, I just wanted to check conditions -- the moisture and warmth. And with this mushroom, you never know, I might get lucky. As the mushroom book says, "it is unpredictable in its appearance." Even though the weather was cool and windy, there on a sunny slope near a pine tree, the round brown cap and thick white stalk of a Bolete might have pushed through. Such a find would set an unofficial record among Bolete hunters in Salida because the earliest date for finding a Bolete so far has been July 6th.
 
If I had gotten lucky that day I would have immediately called some fellow Bolete enthusiasts with the news. And the first question they would ask is, "Where?" To answer that question takes a skillful mix of lies and truth. You want to tell enough truth to be believed and keep your friendship, but not enough to reveal your dearest, most closely held secret: the location of your favorite Bolete patch.
 
To quote from The Mushroom Hunter's Field Guide about Boletus edulis: "Collectors are not prone to give away information as to localities where this species can be found." That is a severe understatement. This telling of half-truths, or half-lies, sent some of my dear friends on a 200-mile wild goose mushroom chase a few years ago. I really hated doing it, but when it comes to "those special places," you just don't tell the whole truth.
 
You especially don't tell if your Italian friends have honored you by sharing their choice Bolete locations with you. My friend KD is a case in point. He hangs out with certain Italian families. I envy him because he is included to partake of all the wonderful foods and home-made wine and of course, the exquisite King Bolete. You don't often see Italian members of our community eating in local restaurants because they have the best food right at home.
 
Anyway, when KD brags to me about how he went Bolete hunting with Mario and how they brought home bags and bags of these choice mushrooms, I try to find where they went, knowing I will get a mix of truth and lies. But I've learned that acting on these partial truths gets me nowhere. I have also learned the rule of etiquette among mushroom hunters: Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies.
 
BUT LAST SUMMER I had the good fortune and great honor to be invited on a Bolete hunt by some Italian friends of my own. We left Salida at 6 a.m. and were on the trail by 7 a.m.. After hiking several miles of switchbacks in the cold, I had serious doubts about finding any Boletes. On the top of the ridge, the ground was hard and dry and the pine trees scraggly. It looked like the most un-mushroom spot you could find. The three of us spread out to the tree line of the forest. In mid-sentence of grumbling -- I am not making this up -- the first sun rays hit the little pine trees, and there sheltered beneath the lowest branches, bathed in the golden light, were the most beautiful Boletes I ever saw. I think I heard angels singing at that moment. After that we were finding mushrooms, under nearly every other tree and sometimes in patches in the open fields within the forest.
 
As we made our way down through the forest with our sacks full, we heard voices coming up from below. "It's that Mario and KD," one of my friends hissed. "Don't let them see you." When we got back to our cars we started laughing. "Mario won't find nothing up there because we got there first."
 
Last winter I opened one of many jars of dried King Boletes just to inhale the aroma (a handful tossed into your favorite pasta sauce is fantastic) and recalled the vision of the dawn's early light on those Boletes. And remembered another mushroomer's rule: If you can't lie, get there first.
 
Monika Griesenbeck lives in Salida and prefers drawing and painting to writing, but will drop everything for mushrooms.
 

With a surfeit of Chanterelles, I would prepare a quart of Sorbet.
It keeps interminably in a freezer: It has many ways to be used.

4 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 cup pureed Chanterelles
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Make a simple syrup by mixing water and sugar in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil and cook five minutes.
Let stand to cool thoroughly.
Beat cool syrup with raw macerated mushrooms and lemon juice in blender.
Refrigerate long enough to get it quite cold so as to speed freezing.
Pour into an ice cream maker and run long enough to thicken ingredients.
Store in freezer, removing just soon enough to allow softening a bit to serve.

This proportion may be expanded to fit any size machine.
~Never cook Chanterelles for this use: all the flavor will disappear

(Repost from September 2015)

The Dollar Store is a great place to get cheap gear for the frugal mushroom hunter. If you are like me and tend to lose sticks, knives and brushes in the forest, they can be easily replaced. This month, I discovered the best lobster mushroom cleaner. Not only does it come in the color of the of the lobster mushroom (hunter orange), it also cleans the lobster better than anyone tool I have in the kitchen. It’s intended use is a vegetable brush and peeler combo, but to me, it was made for the lobster mushroom for field or home cleaning. The brush on the tool is extra hard and long so the dirt-filled crevices of the distorted mushroom can easily be cleaned. Any dirt adhering to the base of the mushroom can be simply shaved off with the peeler. It even has a hole in the handle so you can use a carabiner to hook it to your basket or belt buckle.