Since I haven't been climbing due to my rotator cuff (it feels better though so hopefully it's been worth it), I've been doing domestic things like gardening and mushroom hunting and cooking and working. And job interviewing.
People ask me if the job interview went well and I say that it's difficult to tell if it went well, but very easy to tell if it went horribly. Fortunately it didn't go horribly, so I'd tentatively like to say that it went well. I should find out in about a week if I'm accepted into the pool of adjunct faculty. Maybe I'll also find out if I am offered the job teaching the fish class. I'm not even sure what I want. I haven't heard back from the Vegas job yet either. I might call the guy and bug him this week.
Instead I'd rather talk about mushrooms. It should be clear to everyone now who reads this (all 4 of you) that I'm obsessed. When the weather sucks or I'm injured, mushroom hunting is a great past time. This past weekend I went with Ben, Summer and some other random chick to look for morels. We had an insider's tip to go up to Amador County where some controlled burns had been done at around 4000-5000 feet. We didn't find much in the way of morels (below is all that I found). However spring bolete season is upon us (we weren't expecting this), so we at least ended up with some nice Boletus. I'm the only one who found any black morels. Apparently I have a supernatural gift of spotting them on the roadside while we are driving. I kept yelling at Ben "stop the car", and then jumping out and running back down the road to grab a few. People were astounded, and soon we were doing it American-style and trying to spot the mushrooms from the car. Nobody was able to do this trick but me. Ha ha ha!!!
Black morels and the lone blondie
Sunday Sarah and I worked on the garden. It's looking great! Hopefully the cucurbits do well this summer (squash, melons, cucumbers etc.). Last summer in Davis they all got some disease and nobody got much. Our strawberries are amazing! I can't even wait until they are at peak ripeness...I have to eat them now!
Sunday afternoon I went over to Bjorn and Lisa's bearing more foraged gifts. I made elderflower sherbet from elderflower syrup I made. It was amazing. I also made elderflower fritters. More like fried dough, but novel nonetheless. I mean, who doesn't like fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar?
Last night Kat and Emily came over and we made pizzas with the mushrooms I found Saturday. Emily brought over some taleggio and Kat brought over teleme cheese. I caramelized some onions, then we sauteed the mushrooms, added kale, garlic and pancetta. Here are the final results (pre-baked):
I realized this morning that I didn't get any after shots because we were too busy eating them! The pizzas were amazing. I can't wait to get out and find more shrooms.
