The Way of the Mushroom

Found 'em!Here are two truths that I have come to realize. 1) There are people out there with a natural affinity for finding mushrooms. You will know these people when you happen upon them, because at some point in the conversation, they will not be able to control themselves, and they will tell you about the massive morel supply they scored the previous day. When they go hiking, they practically trip over puffballs and hen-of-the-woods. If physics allowed for the sparkle in their eye to be mushroom-shaped, it would be. 2) I am not one of these people.

this is not going to work.To explain how I learned this, we need to back up a step, to my birthday last month. My friend Mignon gave me a mushroom box from Back to the Roots, out of which you can grow your own delicious fungi. It was a lovely gift, and one that filled me with trepidation, since Jason and I had bungled a similar gift a couple years ago. Twice. But this one did feature smiling children, oohing and aahing over their mushrooms, on the back of the box, which boosted my confidence. I can do most, if not all, of the things a four-year-old can do. And yet, when I found myself balancing cat food cans in order to anchor a wobbly and submerged bag of peat, I had little hope that this experiment would actually work.

Enter my brush with some mushroom folk at Bonnaroo. Continue reading