In the woods, over the weekend, we found morels. I had never even seen a morel growing, before, so it was exciting. It seems I have a good eye for them, helped by the sniffer-dog Frenchman, who wistfully looks for chanterelles wherever he goes. The broad leaves above are ramps. I was in heaven.
Steve kindly let us bring some morels back when we drove home on Sunday. And we had three dozen eggs, too, leaving two dozen behind in Stockport fridge. Vince had only had a $20 bill, and the farmer's wife, who came to the back door wiping her hands on her apron, had no change. The farm-fresh eggs from hens we could hear clucking were $3 a dozen. Apart from clucking hens we arrived just in time to see two young brown piglets being rounded up for castration. Then we heard them. Poor things.
It was a beautiful small farm, and Uncle Russ, the farmer, allowed me to pick handfuls of common milkweed shoots in its pasture. He was amused but interested when I said they were a good vegetable. In his proper vegetable garden he had rows of gorgeous purple asparagus tips just showing.
My job today will be cleaning and preparing the milkweed, blanching some for freezing, pickling some, and figuring out a little wild foods menu for two vegetarians, tomorrow. I certainly have good ingredients.
Eggs, morels, some ramp greens?
An eight-egg omelette, of course. The Frenchman hummed as he ate.
We lived in NE Tennessee for a while and morels grew right in our front yard. I'd never seen them before, and they looked menacing. That was around 1994 and there's wasn't such easy access to information as there is now. All I did was look at them; no eating.
ReplyDeleteSo you didn't save your morels for your guests, eh? Good thinking.
ReplyDelete...no, the morels weren't mine to make a dish with, and Steve said they were left out cos an asparagus dish arrived cold, not hot. Or they would have gone on my tart - so...maybe that was a good thing.
DeleteSorry Laura, I would have added them to the asparagus if they hadn't been vinaigretted. Jack and Mary Anne came up yesterday and we searched hard for 4 hours and between what was in the fridge and what we found I was able to sell 1/4 lb. to two customers who I had each promised 2 lbs. Best morel year in 3 years but nothing like 4 years ago when I could set my crew out to haul in lbs. for the customers.
DeleteThat's $4 a dozen my dear, but I am still humming. :-)
ReplyDeleteI know the MATH is $4/dozen but they were priced at three. My dear. I think we took all she had.
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THAT is a beautiful omelette!
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