Meet and Eat?

Where the grass is mown, I saw a lone mushroom the size of my palm, perfectly developed with a cap so artistic I left it untouched and came back later. It grew low to the ground and the underside and stem were not visible. Overturning the mushroom showed a smooth white stem and a white lace of pores instead of mushroom gills. This identified it as a bolete. Most are edible -- the prized Italian porcini mushroom (doesn't grow in Missouri) is a bolete. The pores are tubes. Now and then a bolete has six-sided pores. Not this one.

In situ

Bruised from handling

Spore print

Picking it, I removed the cap to make a spore print. This bolete cap bruised at a touch. To make a spore print, set white paper and black paper side by side and set the mushroom cap down the middle. This will then capture a spore print whether the spores are dark or light. The spore print can confirm an identification. This bolete's spores (after three hours) were a doughnut-brown.

What type of bolete? My guess is boletus chrysenteron, but I didn't cook and eat it because I'm not sure. Anyway, that summer day I was into it as an art object, and into the art it created by itself. They say that spore prints can be so lovely that people frame them. I put the cap back where I got it and hoped it had spores to spare, to replicate itself. It made me want not a mushroom but a doughnut.

How to Make a Marsha Lunch

Or shall I say a "Wild Marsha Lunch"? In honor of my friend Marsha, a special wild/homegrown lunch today: Self-Crusting Wild Mushroom Quiche and Homegrown Arugula Salad.

1. Find the red ramekin Marsha gave me that I treasure.
2. Fill the ramekin half full of wild chanterelle mushrooms, both yellow and cinnabar-colored types, torn into bite-size, and then sauteed with butter and chopped homegrown onion, and seasoned to taste.
3. Make a batter of self-rising flour (or homemade equivalent), eggs, milk, and Parmesan cheese and pour this over the sauteed mushrooms.
4. Bake for about 25 minutes at 375 degrees. Voila. While it bakes:

1. Clip fresh lovely arugula leaves planted and grown in the Earth Box in front of the cabin.
2. Wash and dry the leaves. Stem them and tear them into bite-size if necessary.
3. Toss with a little olive oil. Squeeze a little lemon juice over. Salt the salad just a tad.

Serves 1. Or 2 if you share it.