{"id":151558,"date":"2013-11-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12013x111x1foraging-wild-mushroom-fennel-dancing-fern-galette-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:12:11","slug":"foraging-wild-mushroom-fennel-dancing-fern-galette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2013\/11\/foraging-wild-mushroom-fennel-dancing-fern-galette.html","title":{"rendered":"Foraging + Wild Mushroom, Fennel, & Dancing Fern Galette"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So many things are afoot these days, including a November Kinfolk Workshop<\/a> on herbal infusions right here in Chattanooga. You can get your tickets here<\/a>\u00a0while they last!\u00a0Also, a while back I mentioned that we were going mushroom foraging & promised you a recipe, and now I\u2019m making good on that promise. The morning after the French dinner<\/a>, Rebekka<\/a> & her husband Manley picked me up bright & early bearing hot coffee, and we drove out to an old growth deciduous forest<\/em>\u00a0outside of Nashville. I kept calling it that. Because that\u2019s where mushrooms live. And that\u2019s what we were after.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m no mycologist, but I knew that much; I knew I needed an old growth deciduous forest<\/em>. We drove deep into the forest and then walked in even deeper, investigating every dead & rotting trunk we saw. I was there in hopes of identifying wild edibles (though again, not being a mycologist, I wouldn\u2019t eat them unless they were positively identified by a professional), and Rebekka<\/a> was there to forage for mushrooms to dye yarn with<\/a>. Which reminds me, do you like our hats? I like my hat, nay I love<\/em> my hat.\u00a0Rebekka<\/a> knitted it out of yarn she dyed (which you can buy at her new store\u00a0Camellia Fiber Co.<\/a>!) and the color I\u2019m wearing is called, get this, cast iron<\/i>! Even more exciting? She\u2019s now carrying hat pattern kits<\/a>! She was more successful than I in our foraging, and has since achieved some beautiful earthy hues with the mushrooms we found that day.<\/p>\n

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What I did happen upon, however, was a massive, angry rattle snake. Well, more precisely Manley happened upon it with me a footfall behind him. No rattle. It just struck. It straight struck<\/em>.\u00a0A mere few feet from us, it whipped out faster than I could register what was happening. We ran, a primal sort of run. A slipping down the embankment sort of run. And then I, like the brave little fool I am, crept back up the slope to look at it: thick coils, now rattling, hissing, and flicking it\u2019s forked tongue. I was in awe. Toadstools and serpents in an old growth forest are, admittedly, my speed. We here in the south have a pretty one dimensional view of the symbol of the serpent, but it\u2019s so much more than Milton\u2019s snake in the garden. When I see serpents I think of Ouroboros, the eternal return, rebirth, the shedding of old skin. The very rhythm of being. Forever passing away, forever becoming.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s no great observation: both the great beauty & great bastard of life is that time marches inexorably forward. Moment to moment particles are in explosive flux, entire multiverses of possibility are imploding at every moment while others accordion outward with violent, star dust & dark matter spangled force. There are so few moments in time that I would\u2019ve been happy to be crystalized in, where the feeling was so purely ecstatic I could\u2019ve died happy. From a Motel 6 in the pacific northwest to the park by my house, most of those moments have involved either an embrace or laughter. Pretty much all of them have involved considerable amounts of oxytocin flooding my neural synapses, if I had to guess. And all of them have been followed by a sadness and a futile desire to grasp at them.<\/p>\n

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I used to be obsessed with feeling ecstatic. I woke up everyday searching for it, trying to synthesize it in my laboratory. It doesn\u2019t work. We have to live in time, accepting that our joy will fade the same as our pain, and both will come around again just the same. Summer fades to fall, trading the technicolor of tomatoes and summer squash for that of soon to smolder leaves and autumnal gourds. Sprouting fecund from the earth comes the dancing mushroom, the hen of the woods. Also come the saffron colored chanterelles and all manner of poisonous\u00a0aminitas<\/em> and sweet hedgehogs and gilly oysters. These beautiful liminal times aren\u2019t really what\u2019s hard to accept, the change. Every time the season changes the world seems to be lighting up somehow. What\u2019s hard is all the in-between times. All the days where your heart isn\u2019t breaking and you aren\u2019t falling in love. The leaves aren\u2019t changing, no snow has fallen, nor are garlic scapes sprouting up. The seemingly milk toast days that fill out our years. That\u2019s when you really need to see the art in your daily life, when you need to fall in love with the sacred ritual that is washing your hair, the miracle that is butter, flour, water, and heat.<\/p>\n

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When I long for electricity & season change, that\u2019s when I have to remember that the world is not a long line. It\u2019s not some concrete, corridor. It\u2019s a living, breathing disc, a circle. A wise serpent. And for every joy that fades another lies in front of me. But more than learning to wait for the great joys, the seas of oxytocin that crash over you and just as quickly ebb, you can learn to find ecstatic experience in the everyday. Looking beneath rotting trees for mushrooms, hands in butter and flour making a short crust, cooking, knitting, and brewing all sorts of everyday magic. The everyday magic is the only way to be happy. If you live to find the highs and to avoid the lows, you\u2019ll always grasp & be forever hungry. I would know.<\/p>\n

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To honor the mushrooms of fall I made a \u00a0galette filled with hen of the woods & chanterelles (inspired by this delicious looking galette<\/a> from Imen) found at the market as opposed to in the forest, though one day I hope to possess the skills that will allow me to safely ingest the spoils of the forest. Along with fennel, a touch of cream, and a few generous pinches of Dancing Fern \u00a0(an ACS winning Reblochon<\/em>\u00a0style cheese made here in Chattanooga by Sequatchie Cove Creamery<\/a> that also happens to currently be my favorite cheese and not just because it\u2019s local but rather because it is amaze<\/em>). It\u2019s an earthy free form pie, and it\u2019s my ode to forests, serpents, fungi, and all of that everyday magic. An ye harm none, do what thou wilt.<\/p>\n

The humble art of kitchen magic in the form of herbal infusions, everything from oils to salt to spirits, is what we\u2019ll be covering (both the making of & the enjoying of!) at this month\u2019s Kinfolk workshop here in downtown Chattanooga; I\u2019d love for you to join me! You can learn more about it & purchase tickets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ps. As some of you may know\u2026I\u2019m opening a shop, Sweet Gum Co. full of southern made & found kitchen provisions! It\u2019s looking like we\u2019ll be opening sometime in the next week (no promises, but I hope so!). If you\u2019d like to be notified of our grand opening, you can sign up for the mailing list in the sidebar.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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