You Grow Girl™

I can't say that I was born a fungophile. I just recently became interested in wild mushrooms in the last year or so. My pal Joel really likes looking for mushrooms in random places and then cooking them all up with the recipes he keeps emailing me. I suppose I was too chicken to look for my own mushrooms for fear I'd eat the wrong one and end up with a nice mushroom design on my tombstone.

However, as my appreciation for plants deepens, so does my thirst for knowledge in other nature topics such as insects (don't even get me started on my forensic entomology obsession) and now mushrooms.

I've been reading some amazing books by a local Santa Cruz author, David Arora. He wrote the bible of mushroom guides, Mushrooms Demystified, as well as a recent pocket field guide called All That the Rain Promises. I've been pouring over his books and trying to make a real effort to memorize all the shroom info I can so when I go on hikes I'll start being able to name the mushrooms by both their common and scientific names, and of course know which ones to steer clear of altogether.

Western Jack O' Lantern

His pocket guide is fantastic because it has all kinds of trivia and unique facts about various mushrooms. For example, did you know that the Western Jack O' Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olivascens) actually glows in the dark?! Apparently if you take one of these mushrooms with you into a dark closet you'll see its gills (undersides of the mushroom cap) start glowing a faint green light. Weird. This mushroom is also used to dye wool purple. Oh, and it's really poisonous. (SIDE NOTE: I'm a firm believer that you really shouldn't eat anything that can also glow in the dark.)

Mmmmm..mushroom vittles!

So it was only a matter of time that I would attend the annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair. The weekend event included everything from cooking demos to lectures on the medicinal properties of various mushrooms. As I looked around the room during the presentations, I couldn't help but feel like I was surrounded by high school science teachers -- I'm sure to some degree I was. I suppose I had a different vision of what type of people would be lurking around at the festival. I really did expect some guy dressed as a mushroom to be wandering through the crowd, shaking people's hands. But no dice. Just ordinary folks interested in an extraordinary subject.

The Mushroom Masters at work

Actually that's not entirely true...it wasn't just a crowd of normal folks, there were a few stray eccentrics in the mix if I recall. Probably the most unusual folks there were the mushroom experts. They sat side by side on folding chairs behind a long table. People stood in line with boxes and baskets of yet-to-be-identified mushrooms they had brought so they could finally discover what's been growing in their backyards. I wish I had done this since we have so many shrooms growing wild behind the house that I honestly want to know which ones are safe and which ones I shouldn't even make eye contact with. It was fun to eavesdrop and listen to experts in action. Those fellas know their shrooms! Hopefully they all belong to the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz. (you Trekkies can stop snickering now...) I just joined the Federation and I'm hoping I can learn a thing or two from these fellas about identifying shrooms in the wild.

Pssst...wanna buy a mushroom kit?

I was amazed by all the mushroom vendors located in the area. If you're into growing shrooms instead of foraging in the forest for the wild variety, there are plenty of DIY shroom kits to choose from. For about $25-30 (usa dinero) you can get yourself a kit to grow pounds of mushrooms for your pasta, meat, vegan or pub snacks. This fella here in the photo is from Mushroomadventures.com.

Is it food or art?

There were also local artists displaying what seemed like a neverending display of mushroom paintings, sculptures, photos and jewelry. And once I got through the art exhibits and various vendors, I made a beeline straight to the food area to snack on mushroom lasagna, quiche and fritters. If I hadn't of stuffed my face so much, I probably would have had room for the mysterious mushroom cheesecake!

Where's that caterpillar and his hooka?

The actual mushroom exhibit was quite a sight to behold. There at my feet were all kinds of shrooms I had only read about -- Chanterelles, Grisettes, Matsutakes, Agaricus, Boletes and various Milk Caps...not to mention all the poisonous and magical shrooms such as the Fly Agaric (see photo above). But I kid you not, there were hundreds of different kinds of mushrooms and it made me realize how much I seriously have yet to learn about this remarkable creature..er plant..er you know what I mean.

If you want to gaze at some more mushroom images, check out MyKoWeb.com.