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Well, the big pile of mushrooms (minus the many maggoty ones) was duly turned into soup, using one of Hugh Fernley’s recipes. It was delicious, and as an added bonus, neither Debra or I are feeling very poisoned yet.
Written by exmonkey on October 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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Went out for a quick walk in my local wood. I certainly wasn’t expecting this amount of mushrooms, especially after the frosts.
I am especially looking forward to eating the deceivers, which I think will join the parasols and puffballs in a mushroom soup.
Written by exmonkey on October 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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Well, it seems that there are three types of mushrooms.
Ones that you can eat, ones that will kill you and ones that you can eat but may give you ‘gastric problems’.
The books are unclear as to what constitutes gastric problems. However in the interests of scientific discovery I cooked and ate some Clouded Agaric mushrooms (clitocybe nebularis below)
They tasted great, and so far I have yet to develop and serious digestive problems. So horah!
Written by exmonkey on October 16th, 2007 with no comments.
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One of the good things about this house is the larder - I feel that I have done my best to put as many things in jars as I can for the winter months. The squash crop has been a bit disappointing - only two green ones (can’t remember what they were) and one butternut.
Maybe there will be a couple more before the weather gets two cold, but at the moment they seem to be getting to about 10cm and then rotting off.
Written by exmonkey on October 14th, 2007 with 2 comments.
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I just made some green tomato chutney, using a recipe from the BBC food site.
I don’t know whether the chutney will be good or bad, only time will tell. What threw the spanner in the works for me (and made me miss the first half of the rugby semi finals) was the fact that the prep took an hour, and I needed to sterilize 3 extra jars (in addition to the 500ml parfait and 4 normal sized jars I already had). Why did I not anticipate the timing and quantities? See below.
So approx 4 jars = 8 jars (one of which is huge)
Written by exmonkey on October 13th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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I didn’t find any mushrooms, although Milo and I had a lovely walk. He’s exceptionally good company for walks.
Not sure what these where, but Milo didn’t like the taste, so we didn’t bring any home.
–
Radiohead’s new album is still good.
Written by exmonkey on October 13th, 2007 with no comments.
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We have been out looking for mushrooms several times now, and have yet to find anything too exciting.
I have a basket full of Common Puffballs. They are edible, but none of my books think they are worth the bother - so I’d be interested to hear opinions on this.
The collection we got last week went in the compost bin, as I wasn’t 100% confident that they were edible. Plus the books (yet again) said that Suillus bovinus (Cow bolete) are not really worth eating.
Hey-ho. We’re going off again tomorrow to have another hunt. Rumor has it that there are chantrelle and ceps in the woods near Cranbrook. This is according to a BHB (Big Hairy Biker) I met, who was also hunting mushrooms. Unfortunately he didn’t want to tell me exactly where they are because he wanted them. Maybe if I’d have had more tattoos he’d have confided in me.
Radiohead
In other news, I paid one pound to download the new Radiohead album (here) and now I wish I’d paid more. It’s a really great album. Like all the best albums, it takes a couple of listens to get it - but there are some really fabulous tracks on it. My favorite (currently) is: Faust Art (track 6).
I recommend getting it if you have a soul (in the strictly non immortal hokus-pokus sense)
Written by exmonkey on October 13th, 2007 with 2 comments.
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Two things occurred to me on the train this morning… I will try and put them here before they evaporate - apologies in advance for the stream of consciousness.
1 - Interesting things happen all the time. I was telling Giles last night in the pub about a couple of the things that happened to me in Columbia a few years ago, and this morning chatting to a friend on the train I mentioned the time I found a GPS device lying in the middle of the road.
This got me thinking… Sometimes one (or I) can fool myself into thinking that little has happened in my life recently, and I am always talking to people who think that nothing interesting ever happens to them, and that the party always seems to be going on next door and they are never invited. The truth is, however, EVERYONE thinks this. Everybody else’s life always seems more interesting, especially if you are to busy watching other people’s lives to notice all the mazing stuff going on in your own.
Last night, in the pub toilet, a bizarre non-organic noise (think tortured metal twisting just prior to reaching breaking point) briefly made everyone lined up against the porcelain laugh and we shared a moment of humorous solidarity in contravention of the normal ’stare straight ahead, do not engage anyone in conversation’ rules that normally prevail. That’s quite interesting.
2 - I was talking on the train about our reliance on electronic devices. R referred to this as ‘outboard brain’ theory.
This made me think about my ultimate goal of saying goodbye to all technology and living a simple life surrounded by a few acres of smallholding, and how much I envy people who already have achieved this more simple existence. Which is fine, but then many people who I look at as having achieved this ambition have done so by being successful in some field (sic) or another and accrued enough wealth to enable them to opt out. Which is weird, because the world is quite literally filled with people who live a ’simple’ life and would sell their soul for a chance to live in the modern, technologically replete world I inhabit. All of which makes me feel like a bit of a white-middle-class-arse. None of which makes me want to change my goals by the way. I guess it’s all about choice, and recognizing the fact that I am lucky enough to have been born into a society and period in time that enjoys health and prosperity. Maybe not exercising that choice is worse than feeling guilty about those who don’t have the choice in the first place.
Maybe I’m just getting old.
Written by exmonkey on October 4th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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