Sometimes you don't look for mushrooms, but the mushrooms find you. I've mentioned on how this has been a wonderful fall season for mushrooms, and I've been foraging almost every weekend. My freezer is full of preserved mushrooms, and likewise, my pantry. I have been giving mushrooms as gifts. Because of all of this recent foraging, I have what I like to refer to as "mushroom eyes" right now. This is the phenomenon where you are so used to spotting mushrooms, that nearly

My last few weeks, and the weeks to come are going to be all about wild mushrooms. We are having a perfect fall for the cooler-weather varieties, and one foraging trip is yielding what I normally collect during the entire season! Not only am I cooking with fresh mushrooms, but I'm also putting them up for winter to spring consumption. This entry is all about the hen-of-the-woods mushroom (Grifola frondosa). (By the way, the Latin name means griffon feathers!) This is a pop

Fall is one of my favorite times for foraging wild mushrooms. Not only is the weather pleasant, and many of the mosquitoes are gone, but there is nothing quite like moving through the woods in crisp weather. Here in the far western 'burbs of Chicagoland the woods are full of puffballs, hen-of-the-woods, chicken mushrooms, wood ear, honey mushrooms, and bluettes. Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea), pictured to the left, is the first of the fall mushrooms that arrive. They ca

When out hunting for morel mushrooms in May, be on the look out for these tasty (and often over-looked) fungi. The Dryad's Saddle, or Pheasant Back mushroom finds its home on dead or dying elm trees. Make note of these trees because they will continue to produce throughout the early spring and again the fall. The mushrooms look like shelves that come out from the tree and have markings on the top-side that resemble a pheasant's back in tones of tan and reddish-brown. The u