EDITOR’S NOTE: My long-time trout fishing companion Jim Wasserman has agreed to take Basura and his wife mushroom hunting this weekend at an undisclosed West Michigan location.
We have plans to go mushroom gathering this Sunday. I thought this was a joke — I thought that mushrooms were found in the spring.
“Yes,” he (Wasserman) told me, “morels are. But stumpers are found in the fall. I think, though conditions are far from perfect, we might find a few.”
That reminded me of the time I hit it big on morels.
We were in north central Michigan, to celebrate Mary Ellen’s brother’s 50th wedding anniversary. We’d offered to take them to Herman’s European Café in Cadillac, the finest dining establishment in the area. Andy was hesitant.
“I don’t know about going out,” Andy said. “I wish we could just stay here at our place and have a steak.”
Sounded fine to me. I went to the grocery store in nearby Tustin and got four big porterhouse slabs of beef. We’d bake some potatoes, maybe have a little salad. I thought mushrooms might be nice. I asked the clerk where I could find some, thinking of Pennsylvania sliced white mushrooms in a can.
As the clerk was pointing to the correct aisle, these two guys asked if I liked mushrooms. They’d come into the store for (more) beer. “C’mon out to the truck,” they said and then gave me a paper lunch bag filled with morels.
I sautéed them with butter and onions. There were more than enough morels for eight people. Mary Ellen said no thanks to the morels. So did Andy. So did Diane. I, however, wolfed most of them down.
They were so delicious and complex and butter and oniony it was a revelation. I could have skipped the steak, but I ate mine to be polite. Luckily, there was more than sufficient beer and wine to go along the meal.
I’d found some lovely flat rocks, to which I’d attached candles for ambiance. The whole event was a great success, if I do say so myself. We’d had some discussion about how I could be sure they were true morels, and not some sort of dangerous imposter mushrooms. I couldn’t be, but I came to no harm — except for the discomfort of overeating, which was offset entirely by the deliciousness of the morels.
Anyway, I will be going to the East Grand Rapids Library to look for a good mushroom field guide, and I’ve already selected my mushroom knife and will assess it for sharpness before the big day.
