Lesley picked these tomatoes green about a month ago in the greenhouse and, due to the miracle of tomato ripening, they’re now sweet. It’s great to have a little red sunshine in the dark of winter, and they didn’t have to get here on a plane from Mexico. On the right are yerba buena leaves I gathered Sunday, they make delicate mint-like golden tea.
Just so you know how flaky I am (I think a mentioned this a few years back): when I see my first chanterelle in the woods, I get on my knees and do a Buddhist bow to it, and to the earth that produced it. Yep.
The crab season is good this year, so we’ve got local crabs + mushrooms, thanks to the rains. These got distributed to about 6 happy neighbors.
The earth around here is feeling good after the rains. Such a relief after a few dry years. Also, after 5 years or so of hunting mushrooms I’m starting to understand the fungi world a bit. Here’s yesterday’s haul, a side trip on my Sunday run. The yellow/orange ones at top left are chanterelles; the cinnamon colored ones are candy caps—when dried they smell just like maple syrup. THE book for our area is All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms by David Arora, not only informative, but witty and fun.
My friend Mike Durrie’s daughter Jessica runs 2 very cool cafe/coffee roasteries in Princeton, NJ, Small World Coffee. When the local Whole Foods, which carries her coffee, asked for something “…new and exciting,’ Jessica emailed Mike: “…the label for the Crispy Hippie…was designed with Lloyd Kahn, of Bolinas, in mind. My graphics guy asked me, ‘what do you want this label to look like?’ And the only image that popped into my mind was Lloyd skateboarding or surfing. So, I showed my graphics guy a photo of Lloyd and told him the story my dad told me of Lloyd getting a ticket or something for skateboarding up at Sea Ranch. So, anyway, Lloyd, I guess, is the Crispy Hippie! I hope he takes no offense.”
Heck Jessica, I’m honored—tote-uh-lee… “…a high density bean that can take the extra heat.” Yeah!
Sent us by Michael Mery
I’m not a fan of cooking with electricity, but this is one electric appliance that we use 3-4 times a day, every day of the year. It heats water to tea or coffee (or hot water bottle) temperature in a flash. Our first one lasted maybe 6 years, and we replaced it. While waiting for the new one, it was a drag to have to wait for the kettle to boil on the gas stove. It’s called the Chef’s Choice 685 International Deluxe Cordless Electric Teakettle:
Another one that gets good reviews is the Breville SK500XL Ikon Cordless 1.7-Liter Stainless-Steel Electric Kettle:
“And the Pursuit of Happiness—Back to the Land” is a wonderful hand-lettered article by prolific artist Maria Kalman: in the NY Times. Farmers, fast food, healthy food, edible schoolyards. Sent us by Leo Hetzel. Photo is of farmer Mickey Murch’s rolling food van. He drives it into the small town where he lives to sell fresh bread and other food.
Maria Kalman’s website: https://www.mairakalman.com/
About an hour after I tweeted that I hoped new rains would bring out the mushrooms, Lew walked into the office with these porcinis. It inspired me to go on a running/mushroom safari that afternoon and I got several more pounds. They look so beautiful in the woods, the rich brown domes pushing up through pine needles. I gave some to friends and we had porcini pasta for dinner. We continue to eat more and more local and wild food. Great book for San Francisco Bay Area foragers is The Flavors of Home, by Margit Roos-Collins, A Heyday Press book unfortunately out-of-print.