Oh yes, more mushrooms! And it's raining like the devil in these parts, so probably more yet to come. I'm still not complaining. G found a brilliant orange chicken mushroom growing on the split trunk of the oak tree that crashed through our back fence during Irene and it went right into a pot of soup. I have so much maitake (aka hen-of-the-woods or grifola frondosa) in my freezer—and dried, too—that I'm set for hot pots for the rest of the winter. All this bounty has led me to invent a delicious soup: wild mushroom made with wild mushroom stock. The only other wild thing I had on hand (other than my imagination, of course) was some wild rice, so I threw that in, too. It turned out wildly earthy, nutty, chewy—more of a stew, really. Perfect for these days of incipient fall, and for October 1st which is World Vegetarian Day. In fact, I think I read somewhere that October is Vegetarian Awareness month. Meaning that we're supposed to notice they exist? Whatever, it seems like a good excuse to whip up lots of vegetable-centric dishes. Hey, flavor them with bacon, I don't care. But let's explore a few we may not cook on a regular basis: kohlrabi, parsnips, mung bean sprouts, jerusalem artichokes, turnips, puntarelle. It's a wild world but somebody's got to eat it.
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