Monks and Mushrooms

When I was quite young, my best friend's family took me to visit her uncle. This was a special trip for Uncle Michael was better known as Brother Michael, a monk at a serene monastery which was nestled in the forest. We spent the day floating down a river on an air mattress, strolling through the vast herb and veggie/fruit garden, and then ate a delicious meal on the stone patio overlooking the rushing water.

Imagine my surprise when my mother, upon perusing a cookbook Sam gave her for Christmas, proclaimed, "OH! Here's a photo of Theresa's uncle!"

(Photo from Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining, page 212)

It's a short blurb, three pages, including a recipe, but the connection was neat. It seems Brother Michael leads mushroom hunts and sells some of what they find on the monastery to local restaurants. Accompanying the photo and write up is a delicious sounding Garbanzo Bean Gnocchi with Forest Mushrooms and Garlic-Chive Coulis. I think I might give it a go this Sunday!

Domesticity and zombies.

My usual morning routine goes a little something like this: wake up, make coffee or tea, stumble around the apartment opening blinds, glare at the never ending Seattle drizzle, boot up the computer and peruse news sites. This particular morning, a headline on Fark.com caught my eye. It read, "It's now fashionable to be like a 1950's housewife as more and more young women master the arts of sewing, cooking, knitting, gardening, and raising chooks."

I didn't even bother to read the article itself but went straight for the comments thread as apparently I like a little trolling and misogyny with my coffee. Sure enough, there were a fair number of posts decrying feminism, er sorry, "raging feminism" and how women, the second they whined to be let out of the kitchen, doomed themselves to be miserable and poor mothers. Sure, whatever you need to keep telling yourself to feel better about why no woman in her right mind would want to be with you, dude...

There were also a number of posts in which men were very eager to brag about their own domestic skills or those of their father, grandfather, etc. Often cited as the reason for these skills was necessity or experiences in the military. Great!

Most of the other posts were comprised of women who came forward to declare that they indeed know how to cook, sew, and the rest of it, but that they also chose to work, stay at home, or take turns staying at home with their partners. Also great!

My anthropologist's mind was reeling with retorts and arguments. I started my own post and would type several paragraphs before deleting the content about five times. I realized it was an exercise in futility and would only result in either being called a derogatory name or being asked, "How YOU doin'?" Instead, I searched for a particular set of words; "zombies" and "apocalypse."

Sure enough, this is where I found my ilk; those light-hearted (or seriously crazy) folk who warn everyone that all genders better hurry up and learn how to knit, cook, construct, and produce their own food. Why? Because the last thing we need is a bunch of naked, hungry fools whose only skills in life are Tetris (sorry Sam) and reformatting their hard drives (again, sorry Sam) running from zombies when the apocalypse happens.

Coincidentally, I had this conversation with Sam last night, as I shoved a newly knitted sock in his face.

"Look, I can fashion clothing out of string! What are you going to do when the apocalypse comes?"

"Uhh, I have a lot of clothes, I'll be fine."

"Dude, what doesn't get destroyed by brimstone is going to be stolen and eaten by the zombies. You're screwed!"

Okay, so maybe I won't get Sam to learn how to purl anytime soon but there's a nugget of truth somewhere in this goofy back and forth. What happens if we suffer a major catastrophe, the likes of which throws us back into a situation in which we must be self-reliant? Do we sit here and wait for some government to send aid? I think there are a lot of Katrina victims who would strongly recommend otherwise. What about the rising costs of food? I make choking noises every time I walk into a grocery store and see the cost of tomatoes. Should I cough up the cash or plant my own?

The satisfaction of being able to make a meal from scratch, knit my own clothes, and do other "domestic" activities does not come from some innate femininity nor desire to become June Cleaver. It comes from knowing that I can survive and the fear of not having perfectly-fitted socks with which to run from zombies.

Even this zombie appreciates a home cooked meal.
Photo courtesy of pageofbats

2, 4, 10 lbs of chantarelles! Ah-hah-hah!

Yes, this blog is defunct. However, I decided to resurrect it just to inform the world that my friends and I picked about $200 worth of chantarelle mushrooms today. Don't think for a second that I'm going to reveal the location! Anyway, we hunted (or browsed as one friend put it) for about 4 -5 hours and put forth little effort to find the golden gems in the underbrush. Sam and I decided to leave the majority of the haul with the two fellas who took us under their wings, revealed their hunting grounds, and showed us what not to pick if we didn't want to barf for three days then die. Still, we walked away with over two pounds of mushrooms and I am at a loss for recipes. I'm not a mushroom eater. I'm fine if small amounts are disguised in food but typically they're not my thing. This has to change since I have so damn many of them. I'm thinking a nice cream of mushroom soup would be perfect, especially since Seattle has decided to fully embrace autumn.

Tampopo

Ahh, Tampopo. I had never seen this film but my friend Meghan assured me I’d love it. During the opening scenes, when the old man described the perfect bowl of noodle soup and how to eat it, I became intensely hungry. It brought back two memories, old and new.Photo courtesy of www.theragingspork.com

When I was about six years old, right around the time my mother and father divorced, I would spend Wednesdays after school and daycare with dad. He lived near my school and a short drive from Chinatown in Victoria, BC. He would take me to a little hole in the wall restaurant that I could never pronounce. I referred to it as “the place with the ducks in the window” as it served whole barbequed ducks. The owner came to know us and would send out a giant bowl of noodles for me along with a fork. I insisted on being a big girl and using chop sticks, much to my father’s chagrin as he was splattered with steaming hot broth. These Wednesday afternoons fostered my favorite pastime of finding a good soup place on miserable days (weather or emotional).

A few months ago, Sam and I discovered Samurai Noodle in the International District. We stood in line for 45 minutes until a spot opened up in the tiny restaurant. It was totally worth the wait. The bowls of noodles were amazing! The broth was perfect and you could order the noodles at varying stages of soft or chewy. A big, thick slice of fatty pork floated on top and each table offered condiments like sesame seeds, chili flakes, or dried seaweed. We both worked through our noodles quickly and discovered that we could order extra noodles to finish off our broth. There is now a sign on a building in the University District claiming that a Samurai Noodle will be moving in. I can hardly wait!

Another side effect of watching Tampopo was that I splurged at Uwajimaya on items I have no clue how to cook. I bought dried ramen noodles, fish sauce, and a few other things with no real intention of trying to make my own noodle soup. I just like having the stuff around my house.

The Future of Food

The most disturbing part of watching the film The Future of Food, for me, was the notion of a company patenting something like seeds. Seeing the farmers deal with their crops becoming “infected” with GMO seeds and then being sued for supposedly using the seeds without purchasing them was really alarming. It made me think of Ruth Ozeki’s book and how adamantly her characters fought the idea of seeds being controlled. I agree with the right of farmers and gardeners to save their seeds for future seasons. Mother Nature doesn’t understand patents. She created seeds and made them opportunists that will stick to the cuffs of pants, fall with the droppings of birds, and float on wind currents in order to propagate their species. Without each other and a symbiotic relationship, seeds and humans wouldn’t survive.

Photo courtesy of asianreporter.com

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy Ozeki’s book All Over Creation. It has been a while since I’ve actually cared about fictional characters and I welcome the change of pace. I usually read “scary food” books in the form of Michael Pollan or Raj Patel. A story about the struggle for non-GMO foods in a fictional book was refreshing. The information was still there but delivered in a much different fashion.

Dumpster diving dilemmas

Photo courtesy of mollygood.com

What stops me from dumpster diving? I’m not afraid of produce that might have a bruise or juice that is a day beyond its expiry date. I think removing perfectly good food from the waste stream is a noble idea. I’m strapped for cash and not above sifting through grocery store garbage bins. So what is it? I’m a coward. The thought of confrontation with a store owner or a dumpster-protecting-rent-a-cop (seriously?) makes me willing to drop ludicrous amounts on apples from Safeway.

In an effort to figure out which places I might sift through a dumpster without being chased off, I have scoured internet sites such as http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/3726 only to find tips for jumping fences and dire warnings about security. Not exactly my cup of tea! Posing the notion of dumpster diving to Sam (“Hey honey, want to go wade through some trash cans for dinner tonight?”) results in The Look followed by silence. I asked Ann Anagnost if she would bail us out of jail if we got arrested while dumpster diving in the name of education. I told her I was joking…

Meanwhile, the vegan banana bread David Giles, a representative of Food Not Bombs (FNB), has brought in was delicious if mildly burnt. You’d never know it was from a dumpster upon tasting it. David’s figures and statistics were astonishing. I didn’t realize how much food gets thrown away by families. I am certainly going to make more of a conscious effort to watch what I’m throwing away and adjust the amount I purchase if I can. Sam and I do a pretty good job of consuming any leftovers we have around the house so I think we’re already a little ahead of the crowd.

I also think about the many times I go into Safeway at Roosevelt and 75^th to see homeless men hunched over at the counter, eating pints of cheap ice cream or tearing lettuce leaves out of a bag and eating them plain. Why on earth should they be forced to purchase food when the grocery store is probably throwing away tons of perfectly edible produce?

In the coming weeks, I hope to convince Sam to play look out while I hoist myself into the dumpster outside QFC on Roosevelt and root around.

I am a fun gal. Fungal. Get it?

The last section of Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma caused a peculiar thing in our household. First, let me say this: I. Hate. Mushrooms. I have tried to like them. I have eaten them raw, cooked, chopped up and disguised in other foods, etc. No can do!

However, Pollan’s description of going mushroom hunting ignited something with my little heart. I felt a desperate need to forage for fungus. So, at the end of last summer when the days started getting cooler, Sam and I grabbed a couple canvas bags and drove east to the Curtis-Asahael trail in the Cascade range. As we walked along the path, we discovered many different varieties of mushrooms. We carefully loaded up our bags and brought them home where a friend helped us identify them.

Sam taking a photo of some crazy mushrooms on Asahael-Curtis.

Photo by Beth Hamburg

I was convinced we would have a feast that night. I would fire up the grill, invite friends, and make delicious mushroom dishes that even I couldn’t resist. This didn’t exactly happen. Almost every single mushroom Sam and I brought back, with the exception of a badly bruised Chanterelle, was a variety of Russula which causes bad things to happen. Since then, I have spent time at mushroom exhibitions in Seattle and have purchased a couple mushroom identification books. I have thought to myself, “Man, I bet it’s cool to be a mycologist.” But I still hate mushrooms.

I think there’s something not quite right with me.