Visiting A Beary Special Someone

 I'm on the plane!! Where do you think we're going??

I hope it's somewhere warm and sunny... 

Ooohhh... we went to visit Gramma!! The weather is not warm and sunny but her smile is!

We brought her the mushrooms we had picked in our last post.

She decided to fry some up for her lunch...

Some are pretty teeny tiny!

What else is Gramma making for lunch? Let's check!

Errr...  what the heck is this??

This is NOT salmon!

Gramma says it's celery soup...

I didn't even know you could make celery soup...

But... where is the salmon???

Gramma says she got something else that we might like...

Ummm... what the heck is this???

Gramma says it's a delicacy... uh-huh...

It looks like... oxtail but... smaller... Gramma says it's not calve or lamb so what could it... uh-oh!!!!

Stop! Don't look!

Sullivan and Gilbert... if you're reading this... run!!!

No... seriously... don't look...

Ugh... these papparazzi!

OK... yes... no... we are NOT going to look at that... nor eat that!!!

Maybe celery soup isn't so bad after all...

But surely we have something else?

As it turns out... we do... still no salmon though.

We have cabbage rolls with mashed potatoes.

Yum. Gramma says what did we expect? It's not salmon season!

But it is ALWAYS salmon season for a little bear!!! sigh.

Fall Mushroom Hunt!

 Hullo! In early November (I know... so far behind on posting!)... we went for a fall hike...

The snowberries are out...

But we aren't looking for snowberries...

Oooh... a patch of sunshine...

And pretty maple leaves...

A funny more mushroom... we are getting closer! We are looking for...

Late season chanterelles!!! We found this one!!

And even better... Hedgehog Mushrooms!! (aka Hydnum repandum). They are choice little edibles that are cousins to chanterelles... but come out later...

They are super easy peasy to identify because the underside of the cap is not gills or pores it is...

Little spines! (Like a hedgehog...)

We found lots!!! They are smaller than chanterelles and tend to grow in concentric rings around a mother tree...

In our case, it was a big old huge douglas fir that we find them around every year.

Seeeeee!!!

On the way back we found this little clump of chanterelles lying next to the trail...

Someone had knocked them over so we stopped and looked around... cause where you find one, you might find more!

Let's seee.....

There's a cutie pie!!!

And another one!!!

Not a bad haul. We are not going to eat these though but bring them to someone beary special (and No, it's not Rose...)

Stay tuned!!!

Mushroom Hunting for Gramma

And... we are back to our Gramma trip...

Soo... Gramma can't hike anymore but... we are going to go scope out some of our standard mushroom picking spots and see what we can find. Cocoa's never been mushroom picking sooo... this is a bit of an educational tour as well!

So... we are on the hunt for chanterelle mushrooms which are orange or apricot coloured. Here we found an orange mushroom... Cocoa is examining it carefully but...   

We can already tell it's not the right type of chanterelle mushroom. This one is Turbinellus floccosus, commonly known as the scaly vase, or sometimes the shaggy, scaly, or woolly chanterelle. It isn't what we are looking for. Although this one is mild tasting, it can cause stomach upset (nausea, vomiting, etc). Best to avoid. Plus, these ones are old and bug eaten.

See how the surface looks all scaley...

Onwards!

Oh... wait... what's that there, in the distance, between our ears. That looks promising!

Ah-hah! Orange mushroom... smoothish cap... we have us a chanterelle!

Mama bought herself an Opinel mushroom knife over the winter. It's got a little brush on the end for brushing crud off the mushrooms...

There we go... first pick of the day!

Ah-hah... some more orange mushrooms... but these are more lobster orange and... funnily enough are called lobster mushrooms. They are a fungus on a mushroom. An original Russula gets colonized by the lobster fungus and turns orange and gets a weird shape. Some people like them but we are mushroom snobs...

Onwards!

And now we're on the track... a nice clump here...

And here too...

This is a huge patch but too old. They've gone all frilly and old...

Oooh... pretty one!

A whole trio of them...

What we noticed after a while though was... someone had been there before us!! See the one mushroom but all the cut bits?

Yep, someone went through probably a week or so ago... hmph!

But we know a few extra spots...

Alright Cocoa... here's another orange mushroom... is it a chanterelle??

Well... duh... no!!!

It might be edible... but it might not... so we leave it.

Ah-hah... do you see it?? Just to the right of the cedar? Right below where those 2 branches cross.... a little yellow patch.

What we've noticed here, and at home, is that chanterelles like to hang out with step moss...

Right then, it took us awhile but we've got a goodly amount... one more spot to check out though...

This is fun!!!

***a while later***

Well... we hit the jackpot!! That last spot hadn't been picked by someone else and there were scads of them!!! We got almost a whole bag just in that one spot. Sweet!

And... we get a treat afterwards! Chocolate covered nut cake... yum!!!

Here's part of our haul...

And the rest of them...

Gramma was beary impressed but a bit perplexed by what to do with them all. After all, one can only eat so many mushrooms in a day!

So we cut up about half of them and sauteed them so we could freeze them. Gramma can then pull them out of the freezer to put in soups and stews. Cause mushrooms are good for you, you know!

This might take a while... we can only do so much at once.

We checked our mushroom picking spot at home before we came here but there was nothing happening there yet. Last year we found stuff in mid-late October, so we have to be patient!