Mushrooms Everywhere!

Cannon St., Charleston, S.C.

They are everywhere!


Mushrooms
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

Sylvia Plath

Mushroom Run

Mepkin Abbey, Moncks Corner, S.C.

When PETA harassed the Franciscan Monks of Mepkin Abbey into giving up chicken farming they turned to mushroom growing. I had no complaints about them taking up mushrooms although I originally hoped they might decide to be the Fudge Making Monks of Moncks Corner. You must admit it has a ring to it!

The gardens are so beautiful it is worth a drive (check your directions) any time of the year and now you can pick up mushrooms. Here is the mushroom story and a link to the online store.  The monks are pretty high tech.

Okay kids. I need to get my shower and get to bed. Another day ends.

Fungus Among Us

The unseasonably warm, wet autumn keeps the mushrooms popping up through the lush green grass

Wild Mushrooms

Wild mushrooms growing alongside a Polish country road. You wouldn't want to eat these ones though!!! You've been warned!! ;-)

Mushroom soup in a Bread Bowl!!

This is delicious indeed. If you're ever in town make sure you head over to one of the 3 Manekin pancake restaurants here in Toruń. Whilst their pancakes are good...there is no denying that their cream of wild mushroom soup is even better! What makes it so amazing...is that it's served in a yummy bread bowl. So you get to eat the bowl...and save on the washing up later!!

The Polish Art of Mushroom Picking or How to Avoid Getting Bitten by Hundreds of Mosquitoes!

With the damp weather comes pros and cons. The good thing is that this year there are thousands of mushrooms in the forests. However, the bad thing is there are also thousands of hungry, blood thirsty mosquitoes lurking below the trees!!! This doesn't seem to stop the Poles who over the past few weeks have been wandering into their local forests eager to find the prized mushrooms!!! As you can see, yours truly also headed into the forest...but instead of bringing back a bucket full of mushrooms...I brought back a neck FULL of bites!!! ;-)

"That's not a mushroom Agnieszka!"

The caption says it all! Our regular guest Patrick Skipton up to his usual tricks again...this time in the beautiful forests north of Toruń.

Mushroom picking is very popular around September every year, when hundreds of people flock to the neighbouring forests, buckets in hand...trying to find some scrumptious mushrooms to take home. There are many varieties of mushrooms in Polish forests...and you must be aware of which ones are edible and which ones are poisionous. Cases of mushroom poisioning are still quite common each year here in Poland.

Mad Mushrooms!

Here are some mushrooms that are growing wild on a tree trunk. Of course Patrick Skipton had to get in on the act!