Shrooms

I feel as though I am just beginning to scratch the surface of mushrooms. Which is a bit odd. They’ve been part of my life ever since I can remember.

That journey back in time began recently in our soul food kitchen. I was searing mushrooms. Can’t even remember what I was making specifically, but suddenly I was elsewhere.

Bang, I was staring at some ungainly collection of mushrooms, growing wild back in one of the few undeveloped lots in Sylvan Terrace, the modest subdivision I grew up in, in Savannah. The same lots that housed annual sproutings of black-eyed susans and wild blackberries, ready for the picking around Halloween. We stayed clear of the mushrooms then, not knowing all that much about them except that every species not found in a grocery store was poisonous.

Fast forward: There were the various forays with the psilocybin version, which truly were mind bending. I remember watching the snow falling on the mall in DC, literally seeing the drifts of white breathe. Or getting out of my canoe on the Concord River and being mesmerized by a colonnade of ants marching by. Fast forward again: I’m foraging for wild truffles in the hills of the Carmel here in Israel.

But of course the heft of memory regarding mushrooms took place mostly in the kitchen. The very first piece of kitchen equipment I could call my very own was an omelette pan, bought around the time I was 15 I think. And one of the very first dishes I every made with that pan was a mushroom omelette, one of my favorites then and one of my favorites even to this day. Later on, there was Bell’s Pizza, always ordered with mushrooms, inevitably when dormmates and I in college had the munchies. Somewhere in this journey came mushroom risotto, a popular offering on my menu these days. I’m pretty sure that memory originated from any one of several outstanding restaurants in Savannah. Just not sure which one.

I’m pretty sure I unknowingly passed along this mushroom passion to my kids. They too are more or less obsessed with all things mushroom, especially mushroom soup. Which connects them to my dad, their grandad, who loved portabello mushroom soup almost above and beyond everything else. Especially the cream of portabello mushroom soup made at Toucan’s. I can still see the thickness of that particular soup, still seek to replicate that same taste and consistency in my own version.