what we done with them

When you love morels as much as we do, it's hard to know when to say when. Looking for them without finding them, looking for them and finding three or four, looking and finding 650-700...harvesting them, cleaning them, preparing and eating them, giving them to people, drying them.. Every step of the process is rewarding, and no matter how many we find, the desire to find more is strong.

Since this is the case, I have developed many morel recipes, all which one could substitute another mushroom depending on the season. A few years ago I made a pretty radical dip. We hadn't found any asparagus, and we really had a TON of morels, so I made another, similar dip. Here it is

Morel Dip 2

3 lbs fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

1 package cream cheese

6 oz parmesan cheese

1 med white or yellow onion, minced

2 large cloves garlic, minced (three or four ramps, including green leafy parts can be substituted)

2 ribs celery, minced, including leaves

1 small package imitation crab meat, roughly chopped into penny sized pieces

1/2 t crushed red pepper

1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

1/2 T sea salt

2 cups white wine, sweeter types like pinot grigio, riesling, or some chardonnay

1/4 stick of butter

-Saute the onions, garlic (or ramps) celery, peppers in butter till translucent. -Add the morels and toss to cover with oil. -As morels become soft and limp, add the wine and allow to reduce in half -Lower heat, add "crab meat", half the parmesan cheese and stir -Chunk cream cheese into the pan a tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly to mix -Pour everything into a casserole or pyrex container -Cover the top with the rest of the parmesan cheese, a grind of black pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes Bake at 375 deg for 25-35 minutes.

I also made a breakfast frittata that was delicious

Sweet Potato and Morel Frittata

2 lbs fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

3 green onions, chopped

1 small sweet potato, peeled and sliced into rounds

a handful of chopped spinach

2 cloves minced garlic

10 beaten eggs

1 T salt

1/4 t black pepper

1/4t thyme

1/4 c milk

3/4 c cottage cheese

1/4 c olive oil, or coconut oil

Preheat to 375

-Saute the green onions, garlic morels, spinach, thyme and black pepper in one T of oil

-Let cool in pan. Transfer contents of pan into town scraping the sides so there is nothing clinging to sides of pan. Put remaining oil into pan and put in preheated oven.

-add the beaten eggs, milk and cottage cheese to the mushroom mixture in bowl, stirring to completely blend

-Carefully remove warmed oil from oven and pour egg/mushroom mixture into it. Lay sweet potato slices over surface of mixture.

Bake for 25-40 minutes, or till golden in color, and a knife stuck into center comes out clean.

And finally I couldn't help but try

Morel Fettucini Alfredo with Smoked Andouille

1 lb fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

One container cream cheese

one cup sour cream

1/2 stick butter

5 T milk

2 minced ramps or shallots

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 C parmesan cheese

4ox andouille sausage sliced into moons 1T salt

1t pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t allspice

Walnuts

-In a large pan sauté the garlic, sausage, shallots/ramps in 1 T butter. Cook till edges are just browning, then add garlic

-Remove the sausage and set aside where no one can see and devour it

-Add mushrooms and toss till they cook down. If the oil looks sparse add a few splashes of olive oil

-Add salt, pepper, spices, and remaining butter.

-Whisking constantly, add sour cream, chunked cream cheese, and the milk one T at a time.

-When the sauce looks smooth, add the parm cheese, a little at a time, reserving a little for the top. Toss sausage in sauce. Serve with parsley or crushed walnuts over pasta of your choice.

So that's what we have been doing with the insane number of morels we found.

the hunt

AAAhhhhh! Spring. Everything looks good again and my lease on life is renewed. I'm slowly becoming convinced that it is, in fact, spring. Cautiously, I remove myself from beneath the rimy ice anvil that has been hanging above my head since moving to Illinois and stare at the blooms in disbelief. The calendar peeled from March to April, and suddenly it's time to file my tax extension again. It's official.

So often my perception of time is like this; my birthday is here, then christmas, suddenly it's three days after Jason's birthday and no one said anything, then Rainer turned 2, and it's going to blow my mind how fast July comes, bringing with it Fox's 6th birthday. Like a rock skimming the rippled surface of water, time careens onward. Oh wait; maybe it's me careening through time. No, then what would represent my experiences? Maybe my I am the rock, time is the pool, and the ripples are my experiences. But if that's the case shouldn't the pool be my life, the ripples my experiences, and the rock time? No. So what, I'm a rock skimming over my own life?

Anyway, the bottom line is this: Time flies in retrospect. Pausing and recollecting memories forces a person to not only abbreviate the extent of the situation, but to minimize "unremarkable" periods of time, which can account for the skimming sensation.

Spring makes me evaluate these ideas. It just seems to come so often, and each spring my family and I set out on search of morel mushrooms. It's something we all enjoy enough to have fun, and it gives us an imperative to spend lots of time outside in the emerging forest. Those of you with families know how tricky it is to find things to do that everyone enjoys. Spending time together can become another job if there aren't common interests and passions.

Morel mushroom hunting is an antidote to the cruel, skimming rock of life. Searching for morels involves lots of patience, attention, and stamina. Spending three hours in the woods just looking around you; silently searching and noticing, remembering a tree, a creek, following a bird, straining to hear voices whisper in the wind... These activities do not fly by, but command a level of experience that actually communes with time face to face; the unchanging changing, the things which remain constant, yet change,that aren't relative to age or dates, unparalleled with any human construct.

We began hunting very early, despite our assessment that Illinois would be at least three or four weeks behind what we were used to. There were five or six trips before we found the first mushroom. As an adult I am able to enjoy these fruitless searches, but as you can imagine the children didn't share my attitude. The second trip was the hardest for my 5 year old son. He remembers the gleamingly abundant times in our past hunting trips at the mention of the word 'morel', so he compares every trip with those embellished times. Looking for hours and finding nothing is a paradoxical torment for a child. We can only hope that these are exercises in patience and stick-to-itedness for the kids, otherwise I expect to have two future city dwellers on our hands.

Hunting in Illinois was such a change from Tennessee and North Carolina. Granted, we had patches in the southernmost states which we knew well; close in proximity to our homes so we could check them in a matter of minutes and know if it would be worthwhile to drag the kids out. As new residents we started looking in the only public forests we knew of. Homer Lake, Crystal Lake Park, Kickapoo state park, and other urban parks. We searched and found so many interesting things that weren't mushrooms. While searching the littered woods of Chief Shemauger park we came across the East Lawn Cemetery; a large garden which was evidently established in 1927. We found very old markers that had eroded to the lowest trenches of the yard and were being used as retaining walls in some sections. There were many gravestones that were overturned and smooth with age and abrasion. There were stones from the early 1800s. Much of the trash in the wooded area of Chief Shemauger park consisted of gravesite decor blown over from the cemetery. The wind makes a dump of any wooded or brushy area up here. People help, but it is amazing at the number of plastic bags and bud light boxes out in the middle of a prairie.

Since Homer Lake is the closest to our residence we checked it most. The most remarkable thing about this place was the number and variety of condom wrappers in the parking lot. I noticed one the first time I ever went there. The next visit just a few weeks later I noticed another, then yesterday when we went there was another, different condom wrapper. We ended up finding about 10 or 12 morels on the river bank above the lake, then another 10 in the meadowy forest above the banks. We were thrilled. The first place we found morels in Illinois was at the Kickapoo State park in Vermilion County. As we approached the park from the west we noticed a huge wind farm was being built on the prairie. The parking area was a small gravel lot set off of a county road, and the place really reminded me of East Tennessee. Especially this place on the corner of Hank and Bocephious:

The parking area was littered, as seems to be the norm, but this time with surgical gloves. An entire box of them had blown out and were all knotted up in the grasses. The area we explored was established as horse trails and the path lead through apple trees around a ridge, then went steeply into the river ravine. It was really lovely. We searched the area meticulously and found nothing. Rainer and I were heading towards the river since she was tired of being lugged around, and as I set her down on the clearing at the river's edge I saw the first crummy morel.

We found 15 or 20 there. That was our third trip to Kickapoo this season, and the first two visits we parked in other places; with 2,842 acres of reclaimed strip mines there is lots to explore and see there.All the pits have been filled with water by the river and springs and are now big recreation areas. One of our prior visits Fox found a near complete deer skeleton. He was entranced. We hiked down the hill and found a few more large bones and blades that had been dragged off by animals. Fox became obsessed with reconnecting the remains. He ran up and down the steep bank with his arms full of bones. Yelling directions to the rest of us, speculating on the animal's death... He is a little science nerd.We didn't find any morels that time. We did see some guys fishing with a radical homemade slayer decal made using electrical tape, though.

We didn't hit it big till we came home to Asheville for Easter. My husband (that's Dr. Jason Robinson PhD to you)had to be in Knoxville the week before to defend his dissertation at the University, so we decided to blur the appointment with the Easter holiday and go straight from Knoxville to Asheville. He had planned his defense according to last year's morel calendar, so we were expecting to hit our old spots just in time. After striking out in our "sure thing" patch, we proceeded to our neighborhood spot and looked there, also unsuccessfully. We went to another place and found some shitty remnants of morels that looked to be a couple of weeks old. Morels bloomed 2-3 weeks early this year almost everywhere. My typical gauge is to start looking when the dogwood flowers open, but with the early heat, all notions went out the window. One of our patches in Knoxville is in the woods beside the house our friends used to rent, so when we go we are trespassing. There is a close-knit community who rented the house to our friends, and they reside on down the gravel road beyond the rental. There are many children between the houses, and when we used to hunt we would run into their hideouts and secret, creek places. This is their newest instillation:

I was impressed not just with their resourcefulness, but their workmanship. As I recall there were two smallish girls, probably 8 and 10 years old now. They did some heavy lifting and over-head hammering to construct the roof on their shanty.

After striking out all over Knoxville, we were feeling defeated. During our brief spell in Knox we did, however, get to spend some quality time with our friend Lee, and his sidekick, Terry.

Had I realized how much I would miss Lee after our move I would have savored those last few weeks living next to the guy. As we pulled up, I saw Lee in his yard with his friend Terry, who has dialysis three times a week nearby and usually comes to Lee's house afterwards and sits on his porch swing. Lee looked up and recognized my truck, and he started laughing and tore the hat off his head. I hopped out, momentarily leaving the kids strapped in their safety seats, and met Lee in an embrace in his driveway. It was so great to see him.

The next day, after Jason's defense, he and I went to see Lee again and to talk to the guy renting our house. It was as if nothing had changed, and no time had passed. His cousin came over and visited with us for a while, another friend, Duncan came by. Lee had a fire and moonshine in the middle of the damn day. As we were standing around talking Jason (naturally) noticed a ton of bees in Lee's yard, and realized that there was a rogue queen bee in the grass. She was huge, and all the other bees were swarming around her, just 10 feet from where we were hanging out. Lee has everything, even a swarm of bees. Lee's bees. Lee's cousins keep bees, so he called them and told them to get them suits an come over here quick! They weren't able to come immediately, since it was in the middle of a workday, but they said they would come out after work if they were still swarming.

We went to Asheville and spent lots of time with our awesome family and ate ham and chocolate. After getting an Easter basket from my mom, Fox opened a hollow chocolate bunny and broke it in half. Inhaling deeply, he stuck his nose inside the hollow bunny head and said "Mmmmmm it smells so good in there".

Jason's Aunt hosted an easter egg hunt for all her sister's grandchildren in Burnsville at her home, and we went a little bit early so we could look around there. We went up in the woods on the mountain side where an old lumber road was cut, zig zagging across the steepest parts. Hunting for morels became just picking morels! We dragged the kids around for an hour or so till Jason's parents arrived and the egg hunt started. They took the kids back down to the house and Jason and I stayed on the mountain, raking in morels as fast as we could. As I would spot one and kneel to pick it, I would spot five more! Careful attention to footing was necessary not to step on them. In two and a half hours we picked 650 morels. Two Ingles bags full. We have never seen such an abundance, and I think it was the high point of the break for Jason, outranking hustling a Jamaican pool shark AND earning a PhD.

After a trip like that it will be very difficult for Fox to simply enjoy the hunt in the future.

4/15/2008 Cora Lee!

Dan and Adrienne's new baby, Cora Lee is the sweetest little girl ever!
She was born Saturday the 5th and weighed 7lbs and 6oz, the same as her big brother Danny, (and as my brother and I). Her face is such a perfect blend of her parents, and the nurses had attached a little bow on her head (I would have NEVER thought was cool before I saw it!) and she looked like the "ideal" baby girl. I couldn't figure out how they had attached that bow and was shocked when Adrianne said they use some sort of glue. If I were a labor & delivery nurse the last thing I would think of to do to a newborn is glue junk on it's head, but it DID make her look like a doll.



Seeing Cora and Adrienne at the hospital the next morning was surreal; it felt like we were JUST there. Seeing Fox and Danny run around the room screaming and raising hell when it seemed like yesterday that THEY were in those little plastic, rolling beds made me feel sorta dreamy.

Those two boys were going crazy! Danny was so reluctant to get near Cora at first; he didn't even want to have his picture made with her. He and Fox spent most of the time stepping on the pedal of the "soiled laundry" bin and making the lid raise and crash down. They were hysterical about it and there was no parenting method we could employ to get them to stop, so we just let them play knowing that if any of the laundry flew out, at least we know who soiled it.

Cora was healthy and pink for the first twenty or so hours of her life, but then her red blood cell levels went haywire and they ended up having to stay a little bit longer, and then having to bring home a light bed for phototherapy. Jaundice is a common issue for newborns.



For some reason bright lights help break down built up bilirubin in the skin which occurs as a result of a not fully developed liver, or jaundice. Poor Cora had to stay in this little baby tanning bed ALL the time with the exception of feeding and changing. It was so hard for Adrienne because all she wanted to do was hold Cora and let her sleep comfortably. In an attempt to make the experience a bit less horrific, the nurses (again) glued velcro tabs on Cora's temples to attach little, padded shades to her head so she could sleep. (This was exemplary of the sort of cause that would warrant gluing something to a newborn's head..) They also drew closed eyelids and lashes on the glasses which I thought was a good aesthetic decision.



Last weekend when I took these photos it was so nice and warm outside; we tried to spend as much time as we could out in the yard. The trees were blooming and the breeze was warm... Adrienne stayed inside with Cora and tried to relax, even though it was a bright as the sun and gave her a headache. From outside it looked like they were either growing pot or smoking it.



Adriannes parents came to visit from Pennsylvania and I'm sure that was mucho helpful.

This weekend the weather was awful. It became really windy and knocked a bunch of trees out, then a cold front. After making a Saturday style breakfast Fox and I went outside to play and then walked to the park, then later Jason took him mushroom hunting and came back with a bunch of morels. Culinarally speaking, our weekend was more decadent than most.