No Half-Shell Deal, But Still a Treasure to Behold

I happened to look out my kitchen window this morning, and spotted a clump of mushrooms on the dying rowan in the side yard.

The didn't look like chicken mushrooms, but they looked intriguing nonetheless.

Grabbing a knife, I trudged out onto the dew-covered side yard and approached the tree in question.

Nope. Definitely not a chicken mushroom.

So I cut off a section of mushroom tree shelves, and brought them in for identification.

Because I had already packed away my field guides, I had to go on-line to for my fungus identification.

I was getting close to hitting jack pot when Ariana came downstairs and said that her large boa, "Bao," was wheezing badly.

Your snake, you make the vet appointment.

OK.

Come in at 10:15.

Yowzah! That only gave me enough time to take a shower and get dressed.

Sure enough, the serpent had pneumonia. (Yes, snakes get it, too. They do, after all, have lungs.) She was prescribed 0.5 ml of Baytril, an antibiotic, to be administered once a day via injection.

(We've gone down this route before. Believe me, giving a snake an injection is the easiest thing ever.)

Anyhow, now that the ailing boa was brought home and no longer had to suffer the indignity of being stuffed in a pillow sack, it was back to the mystery mushroom identification thing.

Apparently, this particular mushroom was the prized gourmet oyster mushroom.

Wow! I struck it rich with a bit of fungal fortune!

The next step was to cook it up.

Using the recipe that I found on-line as a guideline, I commenced my culinary experiment.

I really had no choice but the modify the recipe. For one thing, the recipe called for 13 cups of oyster mushrooms. I just a had a bit over 4 cups.

Also, there were a few things that I did not have stocked in my cupboard, namely: 4 small chilies, fresh or dried dill weed, and White Oak Wine or sherry.

So I had to make do with what I had.

And after my concoction was done, I took only a small sample and then waited a fair amount of time ~ just to make sure that the mushrooms were something NOT other than oyster mushrooms.

So far so good.

It's been hours since my first bite.

No stomach cramps. No vomiting. No running to the toilet with diarrhea. And no hallucinations.

I was still alive.

As a matter of fact, the mushrooms were pretty tasty, though I think they would have been served better using a different recipe.

Ariana did not much care for them.

Now that I know where the oyster mushrooms grow, perhaps I will be blessed with more before the weather turns too cold.

And then, I will have to use a different recipe.