Hunting Up Dinner

Day 342: It looked pretty grim when first I stepped into the forest. There at my feet was a slice of lobster. No, I don't mean the seafood. I mean the stoplight-red fungus which emerges concurrently with chanterelles and is almost as popular with many collectors. I don't eat them, but that's the subject of tomorrow's post. In any event, I looked down on that neatly cut slice of lobster and said aloud, "Oh, this does not bode well." I had put two small perhaps-bags in my pocket as I went out the door on what I call "a mushroom walk," hoping that I'd find at least enough chanterelles for a lunchtime bowl of soup. I nearly despaired. On a different part of the trail, however, I began finding lobsters untouched, huge lobsters. Then the magic happened: my eye fell on two chanterelles less than a foot off the path. In a few more minutes, I had half a dozen in the bag. Ten minutes later, I encountered another patch, off trail and deeper into the heart of the woods. A wider sweep brought up even more, although they occurred largely in isolation. I took a different route back to the footpath, and in so doing, found the largest group of the day from which I harvested roughly a dozen. Yep, there's enough here for a nice fry-up and a bowl of soup. Chanterelles are on tonight's dinner menu.