3 weeks

Sadly, with not much to report in the way of morels and fish, 3 weeks have gone by. The last four morel outings have yielded about 10 total. The fishing has been nearly non-existant, with the snow melt and all. The local locales are flowing in the trees as the dams prepare themselves for the deluge of snowmelt rolling down the mountains. The riparian morels near home are on their last legs and most of the fires are either dried out or covered with snow. But the morels are still finding some favorable conditions in a few burns and the spring king boletes ought to be starting soon as well. This weekend will mark my first trip this spring over the cascades, we will be scouting and, hopefully, picking morels in the burns and maybe some spring kings, if luck is on our side. But the fishing, sadly, will likely have to wait a bit longer. I have been pretty excited to get out the floating lines for summer steelhead, but as I mentioned, rivers in the the trees make things a little tricky.

All has not been lost though, one of the morel trips and a coastal hike yielded my first two batches of oyster mushrooms. I had read some mixed messages regarding the flavor of the oyster. One bulletin board post likens them to bacon, while a book I read compares breaded and deep fried oyster mushrooms with seafood. On my tongue, I definitely got the bacon message, which was surprising. These were consumed sauteed and mixed with veggies and scrambled eggs. We also gave them a try breaded and fried. I thought they tasted like fried mushrooms, hmmmm?, but the texture was reminiscent of some seafoods. Tasty little morsels though, without argument.

I also made my first trip to Silver Creek Falls State Park yesterday. This is a spectacular piece of earth. I highly recommend all who live in or visit Oregon go there. My mind could hardly comprehend how the little stream above and below the larger waterfalls was the same water within the falls. It just didn't add up and seemed like there was a mysterious water addition right at the brink of the waterfall. Words, especially my jumbled prose, will never come close to describing whats there, so just go see for yourself.

With luck there will be much juicier posts soon, with eye candy and the like. Til then, stay upright.

The madness continues...

It's full blown morel mania on the leech homefront. I won't bore you with all the mushroomy talk, but if your interested go here: http://www.cascademyco.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=658

Last night we had stuffed morels for the first time, we used sauteed morel stems, rice pilaf, chives and leek. You mix all that good stuff with some mayo (a fav of the leech in any dish!) and some cream and some parmesan and anything else your taste buds desire. Stuff the caps with said mixture, saute on all "sides" (they are mostly round, but you can turn them into oval-squares if your careful) and bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. I threw some cheddar on the top of a couple of them and it was magnifico. We pretty much guessed at this recipe and it worked well. A couple variations on the stuffing could help the total flavor experience (most stuffed morel recipes call for crab stuffing, SNAP!), but for try #1 it was a success.