Posts Tagged ‘Mendocino’


The Wildest Mushrooms in Wine Country

Pile of Boletus

One of our favorite fall events is the Mendocino Wine and Mushroom Festival. This annual event is slated to occur during the height of our wild mushroom season. That is, of course, if the weather cooperates, which it manages to do about one in every three or so years. This year, early rains guaranteed a bounty of wild mushrooms, and thus, as successful festival.

White Chanterelle

My mushroom adventures started in earnest around the end of October. I took to wandering up and down our old logging roads with my shoulders slumped and my eyes on the ground, hoping for that flash of color amongst the forest duff. My first mushroom of the year was a 6” white Chanterelle, found at the side of the road just down the ravine from the house. Sliced and sautéed with butter and a little brandy, it made a wonderful topping for our Sunday pasta.

Assorted Mushrooms

The golden Chanterelles were the next to emerge. These are generally found in patches, in and around tan oak thickets. The trees are considered a weed in our largely fir and redwood forests, but provide the perfect environment for the mushrooms. While smaller and more colorful than the whites, many say that the flavor of the golden is superior. They command a hefty $17.00 per pound at our local market, so are a real treat when found in any numbers. The great thing about Chanterelles is that they seem to remain worm and grub free, even in the dampest weather.

Zeeler's Boletus

The next mushrooms to poke their heads from the ground were the Boletus, or porcini, as they are known in Italy. In our neighborhood, we see the giant King Bolete, the darker Queen Bolete, and a smaller, more colorful variety called the Zeller’s Bolete. These are the mushrooms most sought after by the commercial hunters, and often the most ridden with small worm holes unless found within hours of emergence. This year, I was lucky enough to receive a gift of a large box of gigantic King Boletus, some with caps measuring over 8” across. I was picking up my order of mushrooms for the cooking class, and my local purveyor offered them up to use as props for presentation, since they were far too large and wormy to be sold commercially. The upside of this arrangement was that, once we were finished with the class and the tasting event that followed, these could be cleaned, sliced and dried. The almost six pounds of mushrooms were reduced, the following weekend, to about twelve ounces of prime dried mushrooms and six half-pints of concentrated porcini stock for the freezer.

Frying Porcini Crusted Chicken

The Magic Mushroom cooking class we presented, and the food and wine pairing that followed, were the highlights of the week. Seven students arrived at the kitchen, ready to prepare six different mushroom appetizers. Aprons were assigned, hands were washed, and four hours later, a beautiful array of food was enjoyed, paired with a 2007 Paul Dolan Sauvignon Blanc and a 2003 McDowell Valley Vineyards Coro Mendocino.

Wild Mushroom Profiteroles

Wild Mushroom Gruyere Tart

After seeing the satisfied cooks on their way, we plated the balance of the appetizers and packed them off to The Beachcomber Motel for our ‘Shrooms and Sunset at the Beach, with Handley Cellars wines and some of the Mendocino coast’s best views. Mother Nature cooperated once again, and our guests were treated to a spectacular sunset, an amazing absence of wind, and a bounty of wonderful food and wine. Our guests were so amazed with the huge mushrooms scattered around the buffet that one of them even asked us to take his picture holding the giant boletus.

Sunset at the Beachcomber

Guest and Boletus

Back in the forest, the cooler weather continues to advance the cast of fungi making their appearances. Now we are seeing the Lactarius or “Milk Caps” named for their milky juices, the Russula, which are rosy pink on white, and an occasional white Matsutake, the famous full moon mushrooms of Japan. Later frosts will bring the Yellow Foot, also known as the Winter Chanterelle, and one of my personal favorites, the Candy Cap. The Candy Cap, when dried, smells and tastes just like maple syrup, and can be infused into milk or cream for the most decadent desserts. For grins, try the Candy Cap Ice Cream at Cowlick’s in Fort Bragg, available only during the mushroom season.

Post by Julia Conway on November 22nd, 2009

Tasting San Francisco

 

Braised Pork Belly

 

Last Monday, my husband and I had to take his car into the dealership in San Rafael (the closest one to the Mendocino Coast) for a recall repair. Luckily, it gave us the opportunity to spend the day in San Francisco and restock the pantry with some needed goodies. After filling out the necessary paperwork, the dealership shuttle dropped us off at the Larkspur Ferry terminal, and we caught the Golden Gate Ferry Napa to the city. It had rained all the way down from the coast, but the clouds started to break and the view of the bridge as we came around Angel Island was fantastic.
 
We docked at the San Francisco Ferry Building around ten, and went immediately to Boccalone for salumi. This delicious shop is run by Chris Cosentino of Incanto, and is one of the best places in the city to buy artisanal charcuterie. I stuffed my bag with two of my favorite dry salami, the brown-sugar and fennel seed ones, and added one of the orange peel with wild fennel for good measure. My husband commented that every dog in San Francisco was going to be following me around for the rest of the day. We also perused all of the other wonderful hand-made goodies in the marketplace, but decided to take advantage of a break in the weather to walk to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, our next stop.
 
We spent the remaining time before eleven browsing the museum’s vast book and gift shop, and joined the first round of visitors in the trek upstairs to see the Richard Avedon photographic exhibit. Since it was a Monday, and not a school holiday, the crowds were reasonable, and we were able to spend as much time as we wished wandering the galleries and appreciating the incredible collection of black and white portraiture. Before we knew it, we were getting hungry, and headed back out to Mission Street for the walk uptown to Charles Phan’s Heaven’s Dog. I had eaten several of the braised pork belly in clamshell buns during the Slow Food San Francisco Golden Glass tasting even in June, and wanted to check out the rest of the menu. We hiked up Mission from 4th to 8th, actually a total of about twelve long blocks, and were famished by the time we reached the restaurant around one.
 
Unlike the more elegant Slanted Door, this was a modern noodle shop, with colorful animal-themed artwork on the walls and a lavish bar. We were seated in the middle room off the bar, and a server was with us almost instantly, getting us tall glasses of water and menus. In addition to two orders of the pork belly (three per plate), we ordered the Shrimp Won Ton Soup for me and the Pork Fried Rice for my husband.
 
Braised Pork Belly
 
The pork belly was everything I remembered and more; unctuous slices of perfectly braised fat and meat, redolent of soy and rock sugar, served on the steamed clamshell bun with shaved green onion and a reduction of the braising liquid. Each one was about three to four bites, depending on how hungry you are, and just melted in my mouth.
 
My soup was hot and steaming; a large bowl filled with broth, thinly sliced char sui (Chinese BBQ pork, sans the ubiquitous red food coloring), cilantro, sliced green onions, about eight of the plump shrimp won tons and a big handful of thin rice vermicelli. The entire assemblage was topped with tiny crisp cubes of pork cracklings. The surprise of the day was when I bit into the first won ton. The filling in each dumpling had been topped with a splash of toasted sesame oil, and the first bite resulted in an explosion of warm sesame flavor, followed by the creamy shrimp filling. What a delight! My husband’s plate of rice was freshly fried, with crisp vegetables and sweet and tangy pork chunks. The only thing lacking, according to him, was a dollop of chili sauce to liven things up, but he finished it to the last grain.
 
After lunch, we walked back down Market Street to the Ferry Building, indulging in San Francisco people watching at its best. Arriving over thirty minutes before the next ferry, we waited on a bench facing the bay until the returning rain drove us into the terminal. It was as if the heavens had opened, and within minutes, the entire platform was awash and the rain was still coming down in sheets. The Ferry Mendocino arrived, dispatching its passengers into the storm, and we dashed up the platform into the warm, dry cabin. Our return to Larkspur was uneventful, and the sun came out once again while we waited for the shuttle back to the dealership. Later, we heard that they had gotten so much rain in San Francisco that the Market Street Muni line was closed due to flooding. We laughed as we resumed the return trip north, returning to a spectacular sunset over the Mendocino County hillsides, leaving the dark clouds in our wake.
 
The Ferry Mendocino
Post by Julia Conway on October 26th, 2009