Mushroom Picking, Sunshine Coast

Just a few pictures from a mushroom-picking outing on the Sunshine Coast in November for this post.   For those not familiar with West Coast geography, the Sunshine Coast is a ~90 km stretch of coast on mainland BC which can only be reached by ferry/float plane since no roads connecting it to the rest of the province have been built because of its steep, rugged terrain.  Its remoteness makes it perfect for finding areas which aren’t already picked over.  Armed with a dull kitchen knife to cut the shrooms off at the stem and a few canvas bags, off into the woods we went.

To be honest I was a little cautious about going mushroom picking since I have a strong sense of self-preservation.   But with the help of a few friends I quickly learned how to identify a few edible species (chanterelle, winter chanterelle, lactaria deliciosa) and to ignore the rest.  

Witches’ butter (actually tremella mesenterica, but also known as yellow brain, golden jelly fungus and the yellow trembler).  Edible but somewhat bland and flavourless.  Expert-picker Deb likes to use it to cleanse her palate in case she has just tasted something bad.  She’s pretty adventurous, tasting (but not swallowing!) some mushrooms she’s not sure about in order to gauge them.

 Inedible but aptly-named coral mushroom

What we were really after though was the prized pine mushroom or matsutake which was in season.  They have a distinctive flavour, texture and especially smell; scratching the stem releases a rich, spicy-cinnamon aroma.  The Japanese in particular go nuts for matsutake and pay up to $2000 per kilo for the stuff.

The challenge is that matsutake are hard to find since they grow underground.  It’s a little bit like looking for buried treasure, which is a pretty rare experience as an adult having outgrown birthday-party scavenger hunts a while ago.   Your eyes scan the forest floor for a flash of white which unfortunately normally turns out to be (a) snow (it was November…) or (b) a small inedible white mushroom. 

Deb with a huge grin on her face after a big matsutake find.

I’m not sure if it was beginner’s luck, but I managed to find at least twelve pine mushrooms.  I had to give most of them away since they don’t last very long, but roasted in the oven with butter, garlic, shallots and chopped up bacon (I guess that makes anything taste good), they were simply divine!

The exciting moment of unearthing a pine mushroom.

My spoils of winter chanterelles, cleaning them up at home:

The perfect way to end a day of mushroom picking – sharing wine, toasted baguette, and fresh pan-fried mushrooms with friends.

Merry Christmas! (and Mt. Seymour snow-shoeing)

 A belated Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there!  I’m back home in Calgary for some nice R&R with the family and nothing more on the agenda other than eating, drinking, playing board games, and socializing.   For the board game aficionados out there, “Stone Age” is a good one (kind of a cross between Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico) that I recently discovered, although I’d recommend not playing against my brother since he wins any strategy game every single time….

Other than enjoying friend and family potlucks in Calgary and Vancouver, I’ve been trying to get out and make the most of an unusually sunny West Coast winter.  I tried my hand at skate skiing (a form of cross-country skiing) which is pretty intense if it’s your first time and your balance is perhaps sub-par like mine; it’s the best workout I’ve had in a long while!  Last weekend I went snow-shoeing for the first time in years and irrevocably fell in love with the West Coast.   It was cloudy in Vancouver, but a short drive away and a few hundred metres of elevation gain hiking and you can find yourself far above the clouds.  We had a day of complete sunshine hiking up and down Mount Seymour and Dog Mountain, tromping around in new powder and sliding on our butts down tricky sections.   Plus my companions brought homemade gingerbread and Baileys and hot chocolate which didn’t hurt either ;).  

 

 

The clouds opened up just enough to catch a glimpse of downtown…

And then everything closed up once again for another breathtaking view.

Vancouver Municipal Election and Misc Van Pics

Well, ultimate season is finally over and the rain clouds have come down and parked themselves over Vancouver, so hopefully I’ll have some more time to catch up and post pics of all wonderful hikes I did over the summer.   To start though because it’s still fresh is a tangent on the Vancouver municipal election which happened last week.   It was the first time in six years that I was able to vote in a municipal election which made me sit up and take more notice than usual of local politics.   

I got surprisingly little propaganda from the various candidates and parties (parties at the municipal level were new to me too – a Vancouver speciality).  It must be all the tree-huggers that live here and want to save paper.  But what I did get was a most entertaining “Vancouver Voter’s Guide” with the pictures, contact information and short blurbs from each candidate for mayor, councillor, park commissioner and school trustee.  I think that because Vancouver is a little more on the alternative side, it brings out more interesting characters running for public office than your average city.  

Some of my favourites:

• Did you know that aliases are allowed in this voter’s guide?  E.g. (I am NOT making this up) Darrell “Saxmaniac” Zimmerman (running for mayor) and Amy “Evil Genius” Fox (running for councillor with a phantom-of-the-opera type mask). 
• 
•  I actually really enjoyed the Evil Genius’ statement which included such policies as:  “Cars that plow through crowded crosswalks will be sold for parts!”, “Replace helicopter flyovers with nice, quiet zeppelins!”, and “Rename streets after people who weren’t rich English landowners.”   Her contact email is listed as: amy@trickyvixen.com  ……not the most professional email address I’ve ever seen. 
• Wendythirteen (no first name) had straight-to-the-point all-caps statements such as “I AM YOUR PROTEST VOTE”, “I’M HERE TO STIR THE POT” and “I WOULD WORK HARD”.  Her website if you are interested is hellhole.ca 
•  Amongst the various parties there is “De-growth Vancouver” which caught my attention.

In the end the vote wasn’t very close and Gregor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver team did a clean sweep with all candidates getting in.  I think I can live with Vision and their municipal policies, plus Mayor Gregor is pretty easy on the eyes too ;)

 While on the topic of Vancouver why not post a few pics from the cherry blossoms earlier this spring as well as ones from a great visit with Becky and Kylie.

 

The elegant Burrard St. bridge behind a colourful overpriced water taxi.

Holy black barnacles Batman!

  The requisite Canada Place shot.

Stanley Park totems

 Granville Island totem.

 

Lighthouse Park

 

Great fancy dinner at the Boathouse – thanks soooo much Becky!  Kylie is looking pretty pleased with her crab legs and I’m a half-crazed woman about to attack my seafood pasta con gusto.  Becky is the most calm showing the tools with which she will extract the sweet meat of every last one of her crab legs.