Sunday, May 17, 2009

A parting gift from Wood St

I have wanted to hunt for morel mushrooms ever since our friend April told me about them 6 years ago. As we pack up for our big move next Sunday, I have been excited to think that next year will be my year to become a morel hunter, since we are moving to a place with a forest known for good morel hunting right in our backyard.

Imagine my surprise, when right in my backyard Tenzarelli and I found TWENTY BIG MORELS by our back fence. (And don't worry, being a beginner, we first brought them to be officially identified before eating them)

Then, the next day April, the queen of morel hunting herself, was with us and we pulled over near a field....


Tenzarelli and I were enchanted by how gnome like and mischievous these morels are... I swear they all hid when we came, walking over the same patch of land 3 times, then I spotted one, and they all cried, "Game's over kids, she found us, you can come out now!" Pretty soon Tenzarelli and April were seeing them everywhere! THIRTY MORE!


There's my little helper Jampaloo - see the morel peeking out in the bottom left corner?


We couldn't help it, we went looking again today, by the traintracks near our house and found another 10. That's 60 morels in a weekend. Best morel recipe so far? A tie between a creamy garlic sauce with morels and chicken topped with spicy sprouts and the potato morel soup with nettles I made for lunch today. Nettle story and recipe to come...

Oh yes, I was supposed to be packing. Right. Back to that!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Crafty anticipation and symbols of the Republic...

The bean will be born soon... so in honor of that joyous event, Meg's lovely husband hosted a party, complete with Indian take out and the craft we have always wanted to do, but have not, even though I think every person who has a crafty mama-ish blog has been doing it for 3 years now...

(drumroll, please)
We made freezer paper stencils for baby bean clothes.


Everything you've read is absolutely true, it is fun, easy and the results are fantastic.

I didn't get a photo of the pants that Jampaloo has outgrown that we stenciled his traced hand onto for his new friend... but here is one of his real hand, in deep communication with his friend still in the belly:



And, I snuck in shirts for the boys:


For the uninitiated (of whom I was one until about 2 months ago,) this is the symbol of the Star Wars good guys. Yes. Who popped the Waldorf bubble and let in all the plastic Star Wars guys? I pray the day Tenzarelli owns a Star Wars licensed T-shirt with a picture of a dude with a lightsaber is not soon, but anyways, hello, Anakin Skywalker didn't wear a shirt with a cartoon picture on it... no sir... he wore official JEDI gear, with special mysterious symbols on it.

Jampaloo has all the force sensitivity of any Jedi, we know this already, he needs no symbols to prove it, but I like the idea of matchy clothes for the brothers.

Back to packing (countdown until moving day:26 days until May 29th)