'Tis the season, and by all reports it appears to be a good one. Almost everyone I know who has gone mushroom picking is coming home with bucketloads. When I first moved to Oregon , I became friends with a guy who grew up near Mary's Peak (the highest mt in the Coast Range). He would take me chanterelle hunting out in the woods and we would bushwhack our way through the hinterlands. I learned about using downed logs like ladders, following deer trails, and how to survey large swaths of terrain for clues about mushrooms. And then come early afternoon, he'd pull out a skillet, a stick of butter, and some utensils and we'd make a fire and fry up the chanterelles, right out there in the middle of the woods. I pretty much thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Nowadays happy to fry them up at home with a bit of garlic and eat them over toast on a foggy Oregon morning.
