Perfect 1 pound 10 ounce Boletus edulis
Steve arrived home from work last Friday, a briefcase in one hand and a massive Boletus edulis in the other. A smile of pure joy lit his face. “It’s time to go mushrooming.”
He handed me the mushroom, a king bolete, also known as porcino in Italy and cep in France. I weighed it: 1 pound 10 ounces. When I cut into it, the flesh was firm and pure white, untouched by worm, fly, slug, squirrel, or rot. I’d never seen anything like it. Normally, porcini this big have been heavily predated upon and are chock full of worms.
“Where’d you get this?” “Right in front of the house.” “Whataya mean, right in front of the house?” “Let me show you.” Steve brought me to a spot twenty feet from our front door.
Leccinum subglabripes
“It’s definitely time to go mushrooming,” I said, thoughts of dinner already a distant memory. “Let’s get changed.”
It’s been raining for weeks, so on went rain coats, rain pants, and waterproof hiking boots. Going mushrooming involves tromping through woods, pushing through understory, going up and down hillsides, seeking out terrain where desirable mushrooms thrive. Staying dry is key to maintaining proper enthusiasm.
Gearing up was next. It’s best to harvest into woven baskets, which allow air to circulate around mushrooms as they accumulate. It’s also easier to protect mushrooms from being crushed or broken by carrying them in a basket. If you harvest into plastic buckets or, worse yet, into plastic bags (which you should never use), the combination of moisture, weight, and jostling causes mushrooms on a bucket’s bottom to be bruised and slag down.
Leccinum versipelle
I dug out an old knife for each of us; mushrooms need to be cleaned immediately after being picked. A good sturdy stick is the final necessary piece of mushrooming equipment. The stick is used for pushing away grasses and underbrush in which mushrooms hide. It’s also very handy for ascending and descending steep slopes in search of a perfect fungus.
Raingear on. Baskets, knives, and sticks collected. We jumped in the truck, heading for one of the many expanses of boreal forest that dot the Anchorage landscape.
We parked and headed into the woods. Urban sounds faded. We were quickly enveloped by the stillness that isn’t silence of the forest. Water dripped from branches onto wide devil’s club leaves. Wind whispered through birches. Squirrels shrieked and chattered. Our footfalls, initially silent as we meandered down moss-covered paths, echoed when we started bushwhacking through twig-strewn hillsides. When we held still, bird songs from every direction filled our ears.
Boletus edulis
Within minutes, Steve spotted a Boletus edulis. And another, and another, and another. Six in that first location. My vision adjusted to the forest dim; I started finding them too. Our baskets quickly filled with mushrooms: Boletus edulis, Leccinum subglabripes (formerly Boletus subglabripes), Leccinum alaskanum, Leccinum versipelle, and puffballs of all varieties.
It’s a banner year for mushrooms. The rain and overcast summer skies that have inspired Anchorage residents to complain loudly and longly (and set a soggy record) are precisely the conditions in which mushrooms thrive. They arrived early and in spades. We collected thirty pounds last weekend and only stopped gathering to give ourselves time to process our collection.
Last week’s mushrooms are dried, cooked, and frozen. Fresh boletes are popping up all around the house. It’s time to head out again.
Boletes gathered in Anchorage, Alaska
Rules for Gathering and Handling Wild Mushrooms
The first and most important rule for mushroom foragers is: “When in doubt, throw it out.” Do not gather mushrooms that you can’t absolutely, positively identify. Leave all unknown or questioned mushrooms alone, even if it means walking past many mushrooms of every color and shape before finding one you recognize.
Boletes, including all the Boletus and Leccinum species, have pores rather than gills
1. The best way to learn about mushrooms is to have someone show you the edible species; spending time studying field guides also helps. The perfect field guide for Alaska doesn’t exist.
The books I like best are David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified and All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms. I also like The New Savory Wild Mushroom by Margaret McKenny and Daniel E. Stuntz. Alaska’s Mushrooms: A Practical Guide by Harriette Parker is good, but very limited in scope.
I made a decision a long time ago to stay away from most gilled mushrooms. The differences between edible gilled mushrooms and those that are poisonous can be very subtle. Mushrooms without gills – morels, puffballs, hedgehogs, and boletes – are much easier to identify than gilled mushrooms, and far less likely to be confused with dangerous lookalikes.
2. Search for young firm mushrooms. Their flesh is dense and delicious. More importantly, insects, worms and other competitors are less likely to have reached them.
Leccinum alaskanum
3. Look very carefully before picking the biggest and most impressive mushrooms to catch your eye. The longer a mushroom is above ground, the more likely it is to be so infested with worms and insects that it’s unsuitable for human food. Be sure, however, to look around the area where you find rotten or infested big mushrooms as you will often spot younger, less developed fruit of the same variety emerging.
4. Gather the entire mushroom, base and all, using your fingers to dig down around the stem and gently free it from the underground mycelium. Especially when gathering boletes, do not cut the stem with a knife. If you cut the stem, leaving part of it in the ground, the thick fleshy stump can rot and kill the mycelium. (Think of mushrooms as apples and the mycelium as the tree; if you kill the mycelium/tree, you won’t get any more mushrooms/fruit in future years.) Fill in the hole left by removing the mushroom with dirt, moss, or leaf mold.
5. Immediately after harvesting a mushroom and before you put it in the basket, use the knife to trim the dirty stem end and any damaged areas. Don’t put mushrooms with loose clumps of dirt in your basket. If you do, dirt from the upper layer of mushrooms gets all over the lower layers, making them harder to clean when you get home. Likewise, if you see worms or other insects in the mushrooms, cut them out immediately; the longer they’re in the mushrooms, the more of your dinner they’ll eat.
6. Wild mushrooms should never be washed in water. Use a soft brush to remove as much dirt as you can from the caps and a damp paper towel to wipe the cap clean.
7. Cut mushrooms in half and inspect for worms or other insects; remove as necessary. Don’t worry about a few worm holes; it’s the worms themselves you want to eliminate. If the pores beneath the cap are soft or soggy, remove them.
8. Store fresh mushrooms in paper bags, never in plastic.
How to Dry Wild Mushrooms
In Anchorage, the best way to dry wild mushrooms is in a dehydrator (in other climates, you may be able to air dry them). Clean the mushrooms well and slice them 1/4” thick. If you slice them thinner, the slices stick to dehydrator trays and are impossible to turn.
Put the mushroom slices on trays in a single layer. Start running the dehydrator, and turn the slices every couple hours until they’re dry. This helps the mushrooms dry evenly and also prevents them from sticking to trays. Rotate the trays each time you turn the mushroom slices.
When the slices are completely dry, let them cool and pack in glass jars with airtight lids. If even a few slices are still damp they can cause an entire jar of dried mushrooms to spoil, so be certain the mushrooms are dry.
It takes at least six months for dried boletes to develop their full flavor. The longer you store them, the better they taste.
Wild Mushroom Pasta Sauce
Serves 2
For the first mushroom harvest of the season, we want to bask in the amazing flavor of freshly gathered Alaskan boletes. I cram an overabundance of mushrooms, more than is necessary, into a simply-seasoned sauce. Remember the 1 pound 10 ounce king bolete/porcino (Boletus edulis) Steve found in our front yard? When cleaned and trimmed, it weighed 1 1/2 pounds, just enough to make sauce for two hungry mushroom hunters, with a little leftover for breakfast. It was a first; I’ve never before made dinner from a single mushroom. The key to this dish is sautéing the mushrooms in batches; if you try to brown too many at one time, they’ll steam rather than brown. Because each batch of mushrooms is salted separately, be careful about how much salt you add at any one time or the finished dish may be too salty. Vegans should substitute olive oil for butter.
1 1/2 pounds cleaned and trimmed porcini or other wild mushrooms
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup diced onion, 1/2” dice
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 Tbsp. minced rosemary
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
Cappellini or homemade tajarin pasta
Slice mushrooms into 1/4” slices. Reserve 4 perfect slices for garnishing finished dish. Cut remaining mushrooms into 3/4” pieces.
Melt 1 Tbsp. butter in 1 Tbsp. olive oil over medium high heat in heavy sauté pan. Sauté one third of mushrooms, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, until they’re well-browned on both sides. If pan is too dry for mushrooms to properly brown, add butter and oil. Though you want mushrooms to caramelize, be careful they don’t burn; turn down heat if necessary. Remove well-browned mushrooms to bowl with slotted spoon and set aside. Add 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. olive oil to pan and repeat with another one third of mushrooms. Add remaining butter and olive oil and repeat with final one third of mushrooms.
In same pan, brown reserved 4 perfect slices on both sides, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, adding small amount of butter and olive oil if necessary. Remove from pan and set aside.
Sauté onions, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper and adding olive oil if necessary, in same pan until onions soften and turn golden. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in wine, bring to a boil, and cook until wine is reduced to 1/4 cup. Stir in rosemary and stock. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low and simmer slowly while pasta cooks.
Cook pasta in boiling salted water until it’s al dente. Drain pasta. Stir pasta and cooked mushrooms into simmering onion-stock mixture. Taste and add salt or freshly ground black pepper, as needed.
Serve immediately, garnished with whole mushroom slices.
Fresh Porcini Salad with Shaved Fennel and Parmesan Cheese
Serves 4
The aroma of thinly sliced fresh porcini is best described as ultimate essence of forest mushroom. When combined with extra virgin olive oil and Parmesan cheese of the highest quality, it’s a rare treat and one of my favorite salads. Only make this if you have top-grade fresh porcini (Boletus edulis). The caps and pores should be firm and tight, the stem should be pure white when cut open, and there should be no evidence of insect damage. Both the fennel and porcini need to be cut paper thin. While this can be done with a very sharp knife, it’s best done using a mandoline, a kitchen tool that cuts super-thin, even slices. Mandolines need not be expensive. I use my cheap plastic mandoline regularly while its expensive, harder-to-clean, big brother remains on the shelf. Soaking fennel in salted water prevents it from discoloring in the air and seasons it, bringing out fennel’s flavor.
1 large fennel bulb or 2 small bulbs
2 Tbsp. salt
4 fresh porcini, top-grade
Chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano or other good quality parmesan cheese
Dressing:
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, best quality
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
Fill a medium-sized mixing bowl with water. Mix in 2 Tbsp. salt.
Cut stalks off fennel bulb(s) and reserve for another use (such as Pasta with Wild Mushroom and Clam Sauce). Using vegetable peeler or sharp knife, remove darkened or damaged portions of fennel. Cut fennel into quarters, then cut out and discard central core. Cut fennel quarters crosswise into paper-thin slices, preferably using a mandoline. Put fennel slices in bowl of salted water immediately after they’re sliced, stirring to make sure fennel slices are distributed throughout salted water and aren’t clumped together.
Brush or wipe dirt from porcini mushrooms and trim off damaged portions. Cut mushrooms into paper-thin slices, preferably using a mandoline.
Using a vegetable peeler or very sharp knife, shave thin pieces off chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
Adding olive oil in slow, steady stream, whisk olive oil into lemon juice. Season with freshly ground black pepper and very light sprinkling of salt.
Drain fennel and pat dry with dish towel. Toss fennel with dressing and divide between four plates. Arrange porcini slices over fennel. Top with shaved parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. If any dressing is left in the bowl, drizzle it over cheese. Serve immediately.
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Pasta with Wild Mushroom and Clam Sauce
Serves 4
Flavors of earth and ocean, wild mushrooms and briny clams, are highlighted in a simple pasta sauce, and melded together through pancetta’s meaty goodness. Pancetta is usually sold in packages of thinly cut pre-sliced meat. I use this in a pinch, but try to buy pancetta from the deli counter. Ask for either a chunk of pancetta to hand slice and dice at home, or have the deli staff cut pancetta into slices like thick bacon. With thicker slices, more pancetta flavor comes through in the finished dish. Bacon may be substituted for pancetta; it adds pleasant smokiness.
Clams:
2 pounds clams (about 3/4 cup cooked clam meat)
3 stalks and fronds from bulb fennel, roughly chopped, or 1 tsp. fennel seeds
10 peppercorns
1/2 cup dry white wine
Sauce:
3 ounces pancetta, cut in 1/4” dice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cups diced onions, 1/2” dice
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pound cleaned and trimmed wild mushrooms, chopped (about 3 cups)
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
Reserved 1 cup of clam broth
3/4 pound gemelli, penne, or similarly shaped pasta
Reserved clams
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
Cook Clams: Wash clam shells to remove sand and dirt; discard any that won’t close or have broken shells. Put fennel, peppercorns, wine, and clams in pot with lid. Stir to evenly distribute ingredients. Cover, turn heat to medium, and cook just until clams open; this takes about 5 minutes (depending on how quickly burner heats).
When clams are all open, take pot off heat, let cool slightly, and remove clams from shells. Discard shells and any clams that didn’t open. Strain clam broth and vegetables through paper towel or coffee filter, discarding solids and reserving liquid.
Make Sauce: Sauté pancetta in olive oil until it begins to brown. Stir in onion and freshly ground black pepper, using moisture in onions to scrape up any browned bits on bottom of pan. Continue cooking until onions soften and begin to turn golden. Stir in mushrooms and cook, stirring regularly, until mushrooms are well-browned on all sides. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add reserved clam broth, once again scraping up any browned bits on bottom of pan. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low and simmer slowly while pasta cooks.
Cook pasta in boiling salted water until it’s al dente. Drain pasta. Stir pasta, reserved clams, and parsley into mushroom sauce. Taste and add salt or freshly ground black pepper, as needed.
Serve immediately with plenty of crusty bread.
Wild Mushroom Ragu (Pasta Sauce)
Serves 4-6 (Makes 3 cups sauce)
When properly browned, as they are in this recipe, mushrooms have a rich, deep flavor that pairs perfectly with pasta and satisfies even the most dedicated carnivore. The key is sautéing the mushrooms in batches; if you try to brown too many at one time, they’ll steam rather than brown. Because the sauce components are cooked and salted separately, be careful about how much salt you add at any one time or the finished dish may be too salty. Using a mixture of wild mushrooms adds interesting complexity to the sauce, although it’s delicious when made with a single variety (or even with a mixture of cremini, shiitake, and button mushrooms). Wild Mushroom Ragu freezes well. When you have an abundance of wild mushrooms, double or triple the recipe to make sauce for the freezer.Vegans should use additional olive oil instead of butter.
1 1/2 pounds cleaned and trimmed mixed wild mushrooms
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups diced onion, 1/2” dice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 cup dry red wine
1 Tbsp. minced rosemary
1 cup crushed tomatoes
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
Slice mushrooms into 1/4” slices and then into 3/4” pieces.
Melt 1 Tbsp. butter in 1 Tbsp. olive oil over medium high heat in a heavy sauté pan. Sauté one third of mushrooms, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, until they’re well-browned on both sides. If pan is too dry for mushrooms to properly brown, add butter and oil. Though you want mushrooms to caramelize, be careful they don’t burn; turn down heat if necessary. Remove well-browned mushrooms from pan with slotted spoon and set aside. Add 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. olive oil to pan and repeat with another one third of mushrooms. Add remaining butter and olive oil and repeat with final one third of mushrooms.
Sauté onions, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, in olive oil until they soften and start to turn brown around the edges. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in wine, bring to a boil, and cook until wine is reduced to 1/2 cup. Stir in rosemary, crushed tomatoes, and chicken stock, bring to a boil, turn down heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Stir in browned mushrooms and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
Serve immediately, tossed with your favorite pasta, or let cool and package for freezer.
Makes 2 cups
Duxelles is a paste made from cooking finely chopped mushrooms and onions in butter or olive oil until the liquids evaporate and mushroom flavor concentrates. It’s an ingredient to use in other dishes rather than something to serve on its own. Duxelles is terrific for using up stem ends, soggy mushrooms, and the good bits and pieces of wild mushrooms left after you’ve cut out insect invaders. I’ve tried chopping mushrooms for duxelles in a food processor; the finished product is superior when mushrooms are hand-chopped.
The flesh of several Alaskan boletes, including Leccinum alaskanum and Leccinum versipelle, discolor significantly when cut. The discoloration doesn’t affect flavor, but isn’t attractive. Deep red port added to duxelles made from Leccinum species masks any discoloration. (For plain wild mushroom duxelles, see variation below.)
Duxelles freeze well. I like keeping them in the freezer to add to winter sauces for an impressive umami-filled flavor boost. To freeze, put no more than one cup duxelles in a quart-sized zip lock bag, suck out air, seal bag, and press duxelles into a flat, even layer. With a thin layer of duxelles, you can break off only the amount needed for a recipe, leaving the rest frozen in the bag.
1/ 2 cup butter
3 cups diced onions, 1/8” dice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and cut in 1/8” dice
2 cups port
Melt butter in pan large enough to hold all ingredients. Sauté onions, lightly seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, in butter until onions soften. Stir in mushrooms and cook until they begin to release their liquid. Stir in port. Cook, stirring regularly to prevent mushrooms from sticking to pan’s bottom, until liquid has evaporated. By the cooking time’s end, you need to stir almost continuously to prevent sticking and burning. Remove pan from burner and let cool. Use immediately or pack and freeze.
Variation – Plain Wild Mushroom Duxelles: Make as above but without the port (or substitute dry white wine for port).
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This post is included in Weekend Herb Blogging compiled by Marija from Palachinka.
I love your blog and recipes! Ah, I am salivating over that shroom ragu. Must make it soon.
fascinating stuff!
i am rather jealous of your weather and your foraging finds – but your skill in detecting edible mushrooms is something of an art
i am savouring the pasta sauce from the screen – wonderful finds!
What an incredible post. I have learned so much today. I have to fight traffic in Manhattan to get to my mushroom forest in my neighborhood supermarket.
Wow, i dream of collecting wild mushrooms! The photographs are just fabulous, i particularly like the look of the Wild Mushroom Pasta Sauce.
I envy you for the amount of mushrooms you already gathered! We found only a few hedgehogs and boletus in SE and hope for more after rain.
Thank you for the information and the wonderful recipes — you have made this excellent mushroom season that much better!
Steve and Edie
Thanks all!
As for being jealous of our weather, Maria, as of today we've had 30 consecutive rainy days (cold and rainy at that), beating the previous record of 27 days set in 1951. And it hasn't stopped yet. They're predicting rain for the forseeable future. I'm not complaining, but you being jealous is going just a wee bit too far (especially as I look at pictures of blue skies and beautiful sandy beaches near you in Crete).
Good luck in SE, roaches. Wish I were finding hedgehogs. They might be my personal favorite of the wild mushrooms.
Steve and Edie, so glad to find out we're not the only pickers around.
Hi,
Just a short note to let you know that I noticed this website using your recipe and image: http://www.chickendishesrecipes.com/recipe-plasto-greens-and-cornbread.html
Margot
Margot, Thanks, I didn't know and, yes, they are stealing lots of my content. I've started the legal process to shut them down. I very much appreciate you alerting me!
This is a great post! I'd love to go mushroom foraging with you, and then eat some of your mushroom ragu.
Hey Laurie!
Good to see my neighbors next door also take full advantage of the incredible diversity of the fungi provided in the north. Keep up the great work!
WOW! I can't but be impressed by this post. And so jealous….I guess living in Alaska has its perks and wild mushrooms are definitely one of them! I'd love to learn mushroom foraging, although the mountains around Athens are I think too dry for them, plus they keep burning them down. I have, however bookmarked your recipes just in case a good bunch of wild mushrooms comes my way!
Hi! beautiful pics! By the by, do you know of any meet-ups, or clubs for foraging in Anchorage? I'm curious as to good spots that aren't closely guarded secrets, as well as other folks with a mycological bent. Saw some incredible boletes near Hope over the weekend, must've been three pounds, but they were too far gone to bring home. Plus, I lost my copy of All the Rain Promises, so was a little leery of a positive ID.
Beautiful pictures! Beautiful mushrooms. I love mushrooms and have gathered different varieties here in West Virginia. We have several types of boletes, but I'm never sure enough of them to try any. I wish I knew the edible ones! Your recipes look awesome!
Great article. You are so right about a mushroom guide for Alaska. My mother Phyllis Kempton, was working on such a book but was unable to finish when cancer took her. She had devoted most of her adult life to the scientific study of AK Fungi. Her herbarium went to University of Michigan where she and her associate Virginia Wells had collaborated with Dr. Alex Smith. The field guides he published were the basis for much of their pioneering work in AK.
TK, so nice to hear from you as your mother was the person who taught me most of what I know about wild mushrooms. I had heard of the work she and Virginia Wells had been doing. One day in the late 80s/early 90s, I called her up and asked if she'd be willing to let me tag along with her when she went mushrooming. Thus started a series of wonderful expeditions. Your mom would call and say she was leaving in an hour and did I want to come. I always did, no matter what I had to cancel to go along. The expeditions stopped when I moved to Juneau for work. Your mom's knowledge of Alaska mushrooms was unmatched, and it was Alaska's true loss that she was unable to complete her book. The funny thing was, my interest was always in edible mushrooms and while your mom clearly knew which mushrooms were and weren't edible, she often told me she had no interest whatsoever in eating them. Your mom was a wonderful woman and very willing to share her knowledge. I was so sad when she died and often think of her when I'm out foraging.
Mwalla, you should go to the Girdwood Fungus Fair this weekend.
A fantastic post! Thanks for all the work you put into it. I almost would want to move to Alaska. Not quite. We're having sort of drought conditions here where the good mushrooms grow.
Mmm, I haven't had wild mushrooms much since I lived in Kasilof – a long time ago! That ragu looks particularly scrumptious.
I wanted to ask – I happened across your blog in a Google-stab-in-the-dark – can you tell me where you're buying bulgur in Anchorage. I haven't had a chance to scour the town yet, but after not finding it at New Sagaya I've been wondering if I shouldn't just go for mail order!
Thanks, CP
CP, Sagaya does have bulgur but it's in sort of an out-of-the-way place with a bunch of other dried products in bags of the same brand, named Zergut. If you walk down the aisles from the front of the store towards the back, it's on the left hand side on the very bottom shelf at the end of an aisle near the meat department.
W.O.W. Those are truly incredible! What a great foraging adventure you two had and a lovely bounty. As always your recipes are intriguing… I love the pairing of clams with mushrooms, not a combo I have thought of but which sounds (and looks) divine.
Mushroom hunting is a reliably good soul-soothing activity, Manju, and right up your alley. As for clams and mushrooms, as the old saying goes, everything goes better with bacon.
Hi, I live in Nome,Alaska. Being from Oregon, we are mushroom hunters . Do you know of any that grow on the tundra around the Nome, Council, or Teller areas ?
Thankyou, Ruth
Hi Ruth, There are many mushrooms that grow on the tundra in your area, including highly prized Leccinums and Boletes. The best resource for your region is http://www.uaf.edu/files/rap/Yamin-Pasternak%20dissertation%202007.pdf – a doctoral dissertation written about mushrooms in the Russian tundra regions that are quite similar to where you live.
I’m going to be visiting Anchorage and the Kenai area in September 2012. Do you know of any guides I can hire to take me mushroom hunting? I know mushroom hunters don’t like sharing their secret spots but I’ll only be in town a few days and I won’t have a freezer to store anything so I can’t possible harvest that much. I’ve always wanted to forage for mushrooms but I’m not in a good area of the country for it. I live in Austin, Texas. We don’t get a lot of rain or forest fires. I do get to forage for figs, persimmons, pomegranates and wild greens in my neighborhood. Being a foodie, I’d love to find someone to take me mushroom hunting and berry picking then let me use a kitchen to dry the mushrooms and make some jam to send home. Of course, I’d have to make some wild mushroom pasta and berry pie to fuel a night of canning as well! I haven’t booked my accommodations yet but I may look for a B&B with kitchen access so I can cook for myself. If you could point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it.
Hi Tania, Sorry for the delay in answering this. I’ve been racking my brain for ideas, but I don’t know of any guides. Also by September in many years the mushrooms and most berries are over, so I wouldn’t want to guarantee that you’d be able to find anything then. Feel free to check in with me when you come to Anchorage and I can give you a status check on the foraging opportunities.