Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

Currently this sucker’s worth a bit more than half what I paid for my Toyota pickup:

See what yours is worth here.

I’ve taken up surfing again. EJ and Steve are largely responsible. Thanks guys! Moving on a moving surface. There’s nothing like it.

Steve brought his dog Boo along and I shot this picture while sitting on the floor of Stiv & Molly’s bus.

Our group was 5 plus 2 hounds and we stopped for a sandwich at the Arch Cape Deli.

I bought a roast beast and cheddar sandwich and it was a good thing I did because my 2 toasted peanut butter & jellies would not have sustained me. They could have in a pinch but it’s always nice to have a little savory along to accompany the sweet.

I didn’t shoot sufing pictures as my point and shoot digi cam packs a weak zoom lens. The rest of our day looked something like this:

It was a beautiful day at Shorties and the surf was pretty happening . Maybe a little too happening for my arms. The paddles into the lineup were a challenge and left my energy low once it came time to paddle and drop in. My first wave of the day was a right. I rode it for a bit and was stoked until I fell and again had to face what seemed an endless paddle. Getting clobbered by a few bombs is not nearly as bad as endless paddling imho. Bring on the bombs so long as there’s sufficient time between sets I say.

This sign outside a gas station bathroom along highway 26 provided a good laugh.

Can someone explain the ‘No Corks! part?!?! The gas station is not located in Oregon wine country. It’s sort of close but not really. If you have any ideas please let me know.

Since the Chanterelle picking was so good last Friday afternoon I decided to head out again before cold and frost end the mushroom season. I brought along my friend and colleague Claudia Howell. Claudia is an artist and holds a day job as a photography editor at The Oregonian. Claudia has a neat newish series of photographs called “gutter galaxies,” and gave Michelle and me a print from the series as a wedding present. Thank you again!

Our objective was to pick as many mushrooms as possible and not get horribly lost walking in the woods. These before and after pictures show the success of our first foray.

Needless to say we were stoked! And we kept finding more…

You can’t pick wild mushrooms without thinking about how you’re going to cook and eat them. At least I can’t! Claudia’s plan was to make a Chanterelle & filbert pÂté among other things while mine was to make a shallot, butter and chicken broth sauce with fusilli. Claudia’s stash weighed 8 lbs. after she thew out nearly a pound of overly soggy or fibrous mushrooms. Together we probably picked 20 lbs of Chanterelles! To find, harvest and cook your own wild food satisfies me to no end.

I picked Chanterelles this afternoon near Estacada, Oregon.

It was a beautiful and rainy day. Oregon hillbilly style. Conditions were very sopping! Still lots of mushrooms to be had though there were many that were too waterlogged such as this:

I think this mushroom is either a white Chanterelle or a waterlogged and color bleached regular Chanterelle?

I picked for just an hour and ended up with 1/4 of a grocery bag’s worth of somewhat soggy Cantharellus cibarius:

The grocery bag I stored them in was soaked upon arrival home so I put the mushrooms on a roasting rack and and directed a small fan towards them. They dried quickly:

I ran into Ron near the end of the day. He said that he’s new to the field though sure seemed a pro mushroom picker to me. Check out his day’s haul!

We chatted for a bit and he seemed a real nice guy. Offered up some tips. “Have tape to mark your way with.” “Which side of the tree does moss grow on?” Duh! “Chanterelles don’t like Firs much. They like Pines and Oregon Vine Maples.” “Don’t get caught in the woods after dark. In these woods it’s DARK.”

Two more mushrooms for the road.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says about sweetfern, the plant pictured below with mushrooms, “This nitrogen-fixing plant is used primarily as a ground cover for erosion control and species diversity in sterile, sandy soils. The abundant underground stems, or rhizomes, makes it especially suited to stabilizing steep, sandy banks. It makes a pleasing companion plant in a coastal setting with the low growing junipers, rugosa rose, bayberry, and beach plum.”

Comptonia’s nitrogen-fixing nature also means that it slows the ripening of many fruits and vegetables! It grows abundantly in the eastern Unites States and I have a small bush growing in one of my garden’s sunnier spots.