May 1 Potluck Party

No meeting in May.  Instead, we have our annual potluck dinner. To our new members, if you have not seen the fabulous garden at Jim and Jeans, don’t miss this chance.

 

Potluck Dinner

Jean and Jim Leighton will host the potluck again this year.  The festivities will start at 7:00 p.m. on May 1^st.

Bring a dish to share.  If your dish includes wild mushrooms, please provide a label identifying the species. 

Bring your own alcohol if desired.  Water, plates, plastic cups, silverware and napkins will be provided.

Address

1402 Willow Street

San Diego (Point Loma Area)

(619) 222-5360

Directions:

From most places, go to I-8 and head West till it ends.  Turn left on Sunset Cliffs, go a little way, and turn left on Nimitz Blvd.  Take Nimitz to Rosecrans, turn right.  Go past the Von’s and turn right on Keats.  Go up three blocks and turn left on Willow, and go about six blocks to 1402.

If you are coming via the I-5, there is no ramp to get on 8 West.  From the North, take the Sea World Drive exit and go West.  Sea World Drive becomes Sunset Cliffs, from there follow the directions above.

From the South, it is better to take Harbor Drive past the airport to Rosecrans, and turn left.  At the Von’s at Nimitz, follow the directions above.

If you get lost, call (619) 222-5360, after noting where you are.

 

Morel Forays in May

You have a number of chances to go on a morel foray this year.  You can join one of the LAMS forays described on Page 2, or you can attend the SDMS foray on May 12 to 14.  We will stay at the Whispering Pines Cabins in Angelus Oaks.  This year, we will not be making a group reservation.  Contact the lodge and make your own reservations. See page 2 for contact information.

There are 10 rooms available.  Five have kitchens, the rest of them do not, but you will be able to share kitchen facilities with those who have them.  The unit with kitchen is $75 plus tax per night, the rest are $60 plus tax per night.  Some of the rooms have twin beds, and could be shared.

Dinners will be potluck, bring something to share, or the ingredients to make something.  You are on your own for breakfast and lunch.  Bring your own favorite beverages.

Some of us will arrive on Friday afternoon, and check out a few spots in hopes of finding some morels for dinner.  At about 6 p.m. we will all gather for a potluck dinner.  After dinner we will plan the Saturday Foray, based on what the scouts have found.

Saturday we will assemble at about 9:00 a.m. and head for the most promising locations.  You should plan to pack a picnic lunch, we will stop for lunch somewhere along the way.  Another potluck dinner will begin at about 6 on Saturday, followed by a planning session for Sunday.

If the hunting is good, we will assemble again Sunday morning at 9 and check out and head out.  Lunch will be another picnic.  You can head home whenever you get tired of hunting.

 

Ensenada Mushroom Festival

9th Annual Mushroom Festival on June 11 from 1 to 8pm.  Food fair and restaurant culinary competition of mushroom-based dishes at Ventana al Mar  Plaza on the waterfront at the giant flagpole near Blvd. Costero & Alvarado,  Ensenada.

Live entertainment, raffles and mushroom exhibitions by the science  faculty of UABC University. Tickets (about $15.) include 5 drinks and 5 food  samples. Info: CANIRAC Chamber of Restaurants, tel. (646)174-0448.

If you would like to go, but not alone, we may have a small group who can all travel together.  Watch for an email in June with details.

In past years, we have taken the trolley to the border, walked across, and taken a bus to Ensenada.  This has worked out very well, and is better than driving.  We avoid the hassle of getting Mexican insurance and the long delays at the border.  We will probably do the same this year.

You can see pictures of the 2004 festival at:

ensenadagazette.com/mushfest04.html

 

SDMS Email List

Up-to-date information on forays and trips is circulated to our email list.  If you did not get an email recently about the LAMS morel forays, you need to add yourself to the list.  Go to:

and enter your name and email address.

 

No More Sporadic Press Until September

LAMS Morel Forays

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Strawberry Peak and nearby areas

Led by Steven Pencall

TIME: 10:00 AM

Meeting place:  Baylis Park Picnic area on the south side of Highway 18 just west of the town of Rimforest.  If you enter Rimforest you have gone about 1 mile too far.

Directions:  From Interstate 10 in San Bernardino head NORTH on Interstate 215 approximately 3.3 miles to the I-215---SR 30 junction and head east on SR 30 a further 3 miles to the turnoff for State Route 18 (Waterman Ave).  Go NORTH on Highway 18 uphill approximately 11.3 miles to the junction with State Route 138.  Continue EAST on Highway 18 (Rim of the World Highway) for 3 miles to the junction with State Route 189 in Arrowhead Highlands.  Continue EAST on Highway 18 a further 0.5 mile to Baylis Park Picnic Area which will be on the RIGHT (South)

AS USUAL ON ALL FORAYS, BRING A LUNCH, WATER, AND WARM CLOTHING TO THE FORAY.

RAIN (OR SNOW) CANCELS!

In our last foray to this area on April 30, 2005, contractors for the Forest Service were removing dead trees from the area.  This is part of a forest-wide program to remove trees killed by drought and reduce wildfire hazards.  I have not had the opportunity to return since and assess the level of disturbance from these operations and the possible effect on mushroom habitat.  If conditions do not appear promising, there are other areas nearby where we can continue hunting.

 

May 6-7 (Saturday-Sunday)

Weekend Foray to Barton Flats in the San Bernardino Mountains

Saturday: May 6, 2006 9:30 AM

Sunday: May 7, 2006 9:30 AM

Led by Steven Pencall

As in years past, we will have a weekend foray to Barton Flats. The earlier foray start times reflect the fact that many participants will be staying nearby.  However, both forays are open to anyone who drives up for the day.

Meet in the parking lot of the Angelus Oaks Store on the WEST (left) side of State Highway 38 20.2 miles north of the Orange Street exit from Interstate 10 in Redlands. 

LAMS members who wish to find local accommodations are encouraged to contact either of the following establishments.  Some of the cabins contain kitchen facilities.  Please be aware that early reservations are advised.  In my experience, the telephone is a more effective way to reach these establishments.

The Lodge at Angelus Oaks

http://www.at-la.com/lao/

Tel (909) 794-9523

Fax (909) 794-6612

damionl at ibm.net

 

Whispering Pines Cabins

www.at-la.com/whispering_pines/

(909) 794-9644

evonne_long at hotmail.com

 

DRIVING DIRECTIONS

From the San Diego area: drive North on Interstates 15 and 215 to the junction of Interstates 10 and 215 in Colton, turn EAST on Interstate 10 toward Redlands and continue EAST six miles to the Orange Street exit (Highway 38) in Redlands.

The following mileages and instructions assume that you have set your odometer to zero at the Orange Street exit in Redlands.  The first mileage is the cumulative mileage from the Orange Street exit.  The second mileage is the mileage measured since the previous entry.  Note that your mileage may vary slightly.

0.0     0.0         Orange Street exit in Redlands.  Turn LEFT (north).

0.6     0.6          Turn RIGHT (east) on Lugonia Avenue.

3.1     2.5          Wabash Street.  Continue straight.  Entering town of

Mentone.  TOP UP GAS TANK in Mentone.  Availability of fuel in the

mountains is uncertain.

8.6     5.5     Bryant Street.  Turnoff to Yucaipa and Oak Glen--continue

straight ahead on Highway 38.  Mill Creek ranger station on right 100 yards after turnoff.  Adventure Passes may be purchased here 8 am-4:30 pm weekdays.

12.4   3.8      Mountain Home Village.  No services available.

15.0   2.6      Turnoff to Forest Falls.  Stay LEFT on Highway 38.  Begin

steep grade up mountain.

20.2   5.2       Hamlet of Angelus Oaks.  Store, restaurant, Adventure

Passes for sale.  Gas may or MAY NOT be available.

Allow 35-40 minutes to travel the 20 miles from Redlands to Angelus Oaks.

Important Notes for both Forays:

#1.  In keeping with LAMS policy, all foray participants, members or not, will be required to sign a liability release in order to participate in the foray.

#2.  For this foray, you will also need a forest "Adventure Pass" to park in the National Forest.

#3.  I also ask all members to refrain from collecting at foray sites in the 10 days prior to the foray. "Poaching" on announced foray sites before a group event diminishes the foray experience of many people for the benefit of a few (or one). This kind of activity has caused hard feelings in other mushroom clubs. LAMS has been remarkably free of this kind of divisive behavior. Let's not start now.

For the latest on these forays, see the LAMS web site at:

www.lamushrooms.org

 

A note on maps

You can use Google maps or Google Earth to see a map of the area, with a satellite picture.  Enter Angelus Oaks and search.  On Google Earth, you can tilt the picture to see the topography, and take a virtual tour of the foray area.  The resolution is good enough to see individual trees and buildings.  We will be hunting areas near Jenks Lake and Barton Flats.

The USGS 7.5 Minute Series maps for the Big Bear Lake and Moonridge quadrangles cover the areas we will be foraging in.

Hobby hunters looking for good morel mushroom crop

By Rebecca Boone,
Associated Press,
 from Pantagraph.com

BOISE, Idaho - Last year's mild wildfire season in the Northwest may be bad news for commercial mushroom hunters, but hobbyists are already salivating at the thought of spring morels.

More than 8.2 million acres of state and federal lands nationwide burned during the 2005 wildfire season, and mushrooms typically thrive in the year after wildfires.

But many of last year's fires were in grass and rangeland instead of forests, where the mushrooms are most often found.

"Commercial hunters follow the burns, because at peak season they can make $1,000 a day," said Orson Miller Jr., a prominent mycologist who lives in McCall, Idaho. "They'll probably be in other states this year."

However, pothunters - hobbyists who collect enough of the wild mushrooms for dinner and perhaps some extras for drying - will likely be in luck, Miller said.

"This year looks particularly good because we got quite a bit of moisture in the soil before the freeze-up last fall, and that really gives the morels a chance to grow," Miller said.

Morels are an aromatic fungus with a distinctive cap that looks a bit like a peach pit or pinecone.

They are highly prized by gourmet cooks and fine restaurants, and can fetch $30 a pound or more for pickers.

The high prices have led to a competitive commercial picking industry, largely made up of traveling outfits that go from burn site to burn site.

For pothunters, nothing is more frustrating than arriving at a favorite mushroom site only to find it's already been picked clean by a commercial outfit.

"For mushroom hunting in general, this should be a good year because the commercial picking may be concentrated to a few very small burn areas," said Genille Steiner with the Southern Idaho Mycological Association.

Marjie Millard, owner of Millard Family Mushrooms in Waldport, Ore., used to travel to burn sites throughout the Northwest to ensure a good spring haul. But these days she spends most of her time picking in her home state.

"Last year it was Alaska; they had a ton of wildfires up there. People I've talked to this year plan on staying closer to home, maybe in Oregon or Washington," Millard said.

Lori Carris, a resident mycologist at Washington State University in Pullman, said would-be mushroom gatherers can find morels even without the forest fires. They just have to know what to look for.

"We can find morels coming up when there's been construction, or on campus here at WSU in the spring when they put new planting beds around a building or shrubs and woodchips," she said.

The mushrooms also occur naturally, without disruption. Finding those fungus flushes is just a matter of timing, she said.

"I always look for trilliums or calypso orchids in bloom. For the most part, we want the snow to be gone," she said. "When the trilliums start to turn pink and purple, that's the end of the morels in that spot."

 

Tell the truth - except during morel season

By George Little
The State Journal-Register, Springfield, IL

Crossing a dusty road, I was caught out in the open. The approaching pickup truck lost sight of me when it got to the bottom of a little hill. I had just enough time to stuff my sack of morels into a culvert before I got caught holding the bag.

Stopping beside me, the driver and a cab full of kids wanted to know if I’d had any luck. I told them I hadn’t found anything but ticks. Trying to be helpful, I described a spot 10 miles from anywhere I intended to go, telling the driver I’d found a bucket full of mushrooms there a couple of years ago. He couldn’t have been any happier if I’d given him the GPS coordinates of Captain Kidd’s treasure. He sped off in search of the mother lode.

When he was out of sight, I retrieved my sack and went on my merry way. I didn’t have even the slightest twinge of remorse as I headed back into the timber. It was just another skirmish on the front lines of the annual morel wars.

If the guy in the truck was a seasoned hunter, with years of batter-dipped, golden-fried mushrooms under his belt, he wouldn’t have bothered to stop and ask. As my dad would say after sending a novice mushroom hunter off on a wild goose chase, “What did he think was going to happen?”

When my cousin Lloyd and I were boys, nobody but farm folks had ever seen a mushroom, much less picked one. We started scouring the timbers in late April when the leaves on a hedge tree were the size of a mouse’s ear. There wasn’t any serious competition for our favorite spots because they were across the crick, up the bluff and a mile or more from anything that resembled a road.

Today, morels have become gourmet delights. Restaurants put them in quiches. Mushrooming has its own line of apparel and equipment. People are out beating the grass with walking sticks and yelling every time they see a toadstool.

Nothing good ever stays simple.

Beginning mushroomers have a wealth of information at their disposal. Google “morels” and you’ll get half a million hits.

There are hundreds of photos of happy hunters holding morels as big as softball bats. Some of those snapshots might be real, but the seasoned and successful morel hunter would never send his likeness out into cyberspace.

Internet morel pictures are good candidates to be Photoshopped, digitally enhancing composite images to create an imaginary mushroom harvest. It wouldn’t be the first time someone fibbed about mushrooms that they didn’t find.

When teaching youngsters the finer points of mushrooming, it’s a slippery slope explaining that, during mushroom season, it’s OK to bend the truth around a corner - or to disregard it entirely.

It’s not as bad as it sounds. I look at it as a practical lesson in civics, and an introduction to one of the mainstays of Illinois politics - situational ethics.

George Little is an outdoors writer living in Springfield.

 

Mushrooms Are Unlikely Source of Vitamin D

By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Mushrooms may soon emerge from the dark as an unlikely but significant source of vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin that helps keep bones strong and fights disease.

New research, while preliminary, suggests that brief exposure to ultraviolet light can zap even the blandest and whitest farmed mushrooms with a giant serving of the vitamin. The Food and Drug Administration proposed the study, which is being funded by industry.

Exposing growing or just-picked mushrooms to UV light would be cheap and easy to do if it could mean turning the agricultural product into a unique plant source of vitamin D, scientists and growers said. That would be a boon especially for people who don't eat fish or milk, which is today the major fortified source of the important vitamin.

One grower predicted the pilot project, if supported by further research, could give consumers a radically different reason to buy mushrooms, now sought out for being low in fat and calories.

"They eat them for what they don't have, versus what they do have," said Joe Caldwell, vice president of Monterey Mushrooms. The Watsonville, Calif. company is the nation's largest producer of fresh mushrooms.

The ongoing work so far has found that a single serving of white button mushrooms — the most commonly sold mushroom — will contain 869 percent the daily value of vitamin D once exposed to just five minutes of UV light after being harvested . If confirmed, that would be more than what's in two tablespoons of cod liver oil, one of the richest — and most detested — natural sources of the vitamin, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The FDA proposed the research, which was funded by the Mushroom Council, as the agency looks for ways to increase the amounts of vitamin D consumed by Americans.

Sunshine is a significant source of vitamin D, since natural UV rays trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Mushrooms also synthesize vitamin D, albeit in a different form, through UV exposure. Growers typically raise the mushrooms indoors in the dark, switching on fluorescent lights only at harvest time. That means they now contain negligible amounts of vitamin D.

Research, including new findings also being presented at the conference, consistently has shown that many adult Americans do not spend enough time outside to receive enough UV exposure needed to produce ample vitamin D. The problem is especially acute in winter.

"This could be it," said Robert Beelman, a Penn State food scientist who's spent more than a decade working to give mushrooms their own "nutritional identity."

Beelman said his research has shown that exposing growing mushrooms to three hours of artificial UV light increases their vitamin D content significantly. That could be easier than exposing fresh-picked mushrooms to light, Beelman said. The only drawback is that the white button mushrooms — like people — tend to darken with increased UV exposure, he added.

 

 

11-year-old finds 5-pound mushroom

Noblesville Daily Times,
 Noblesville, Indiana

 

Janet White has been searching for mushrooms for almost her entire life but on Saturday, her decade long interest led to her largest discovery yet.

White, 11, shown in the photo, and mother Tammy Vickery found a five-pound plus mushroom on their way out of the woods in one of their regular hunting spots at an undisclosed location in Noblesville along with several Morel variety mushrooms. Neither White nor Vickery were sure the species of large mushroom found but were headed to find more information Monday before “taking it home and cooking it,” Vickery said.

White said it was the last mushroom they found Saturday and was one of more than 50 collected over the weekend. Vickery said she and White have hunted mushrooms together since White was one year old.

“She was the best when she was one,” she said of White. “She was lower to the ground.” 

 

Summer Mushrooming

By Dave Grubb

Our local mushroom season is history, so it is time to start thinking about traveling to where the mushrooms grow in summer.  The events list on this page is the most complete list I have been able to gather of summer events.  Make sure you are on the email list for any other information I can find.  Check the SDMYCO.org web site in June for links to as many events as I can locate.

I am already looking forward to the Crested Butte festival, my personal favorite of the Colorado mushroom events.  This year I will try to spend a little more time hunting the spots I found in Utah last summer.

If you are able to get in some summer mushrooming, please remember to write a note for the Sporadic Press, and share your experience.

 

Mushroom Events

SDMS Events

May 1,  2006

SDMS Potluck Party

 

May 12 to 14, 2006

SDMS/LAMS Morel Foray

Barton Flats & Angelus Oaks

 

Other Events

April 29, 2006

LAMS Morel Foray

Strawberry Peak

www.lamushrooms.org

 

May 6 to 7, 2006

LAMS Morel Foray

Barton Flats & Angelus Oaks

 

May 27 & 28, 2006

Mushroom Mardi Gras

Morgan Hill, CA

www.mhmushroommardigras.com

 

June 11, 2006

IX Feria del Hongo

9^th Annual Mushroom Festival

Ensenada, BC, Mexico

 

July 9-16, 2006

Querétaro Mushrooming Mission

www.mexmush.com

 

August 12-15, 2006

IV Feria del Hongo San Juanito

San Juanito, Chihuahua, Mexico

www.chihuahua.gob.mx/turismoweb

 

August 6-13, 2006

Oaxaca Foray Excursion

www.mexmush.com

 

August 17 to 20, 2006

Crested Butte Festival

Crested Butte, CO

CBMUSHFEST.com

 

August 17 to 20, 2006

NAMA Foray 2006

Near Jasper National Park

Hinton, Alberta, Canada

 

August 24 to 27, 2006

New Mexico Foray

N.M. Mycological Society

Los Alamos, NM

www.mycowest.org

 

August 23 to 27, 2006

Telluride Festival

Telluride, CO

 

August 26 to 28, 2006

Alaska Mushroom Workshop

www.tentandbreakfastalaska.com

907-235-3633 or 907-345-2571

 

September 1 to 4, 2006

NEMF Foray

Cercle des mycologues de Montréal

Lac-Bouchette, Canada

www.mycomontreal.qc.ca

www.nemf.org/

 

Sept 15 to 17, 2006

Newfoundland Foray

Lavrock Centre, Newfoundland

hnhs.ca/mushrooms/foray-2006/

 

October 20-22, 2006

7th Annual Mushroom Fest

Yachats, Oregon

www.yachats.org/events.html

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March 6th

Hi! Donata and I were out today in XXXXXXXX, and found a bunch of boletes, blewits, and slippery jacks. Most were waterlogged, but many were just fine. All stages of growth there - some old ones and many small ones. We were taking boletes for the most part - could have filled up the car with blewits. Too bad the slippery jacks were wormy - could have filled up the car with them also. I've included several pictures from today in case you are interested. I'm not sure why the date on all my pictures keeps reverting to the factory setting. I've tried to correct this, but don't know what you'll get. At any rate, the pictures ARE from today. Good luck if you go.

Gene and Donata Grizas

SDMS Information