Blewitts (and more) in Pictures

I brought camera on sunday and got some pics for you:

A woolly blanket for the baby herbs, keeps down the competition and the slugs hate fur too:

Nettle roots will be used to dye the rest of the fleece:

Lepista sordida growing among nettles - and Alexander seedlings in the foreground:

and at home waiting to be cooked:

with red onions and butter:

giving a simple meal with a beetroot and Alexander salad in the background:

Wood Blewitts and Alexanders

I went down the notment a couple of days ago as its the change of season and its time to check up.

I found all the little herbs I planted doing well under their woolly blanket, and the big dominating original plants that were so enormous in the summer, dying back and shrivelling. The Alexanders were fallen, rotting already, but there were masses of baby ones coming which is perfect for harvesting so I got a good crop of those as well as some very lush and think dandelion leaves for a nice salad. The Alexanders are rather strong flavoured to eat in quantity but they were excellent chopped up small with a beetroot salad.

As I cleared away the burdock, getting burrs all over my woollens, and the nettles, and the big Alexanders (fallen), I found a big collection of purpley-brown mushrooms. They smelt heavenly, a very strong mushroomy smell like oyster mushrooms and at first I thought that's what they were. Really the scent made me want to eat them right there and then, its was very powerful.

But closer up they obviously werent that, so i took one home to identify and pored over my books and left it on a black paper to see the spore colour. It looked promisingly like a Wood Blewitt but could have also been something nasty called a Silky Pinkgill, so as always with a new mushroom a certain sense of adventure fell upon me.

I checked the books and they gave rather unclear and conflicting information, and online I fared no better. Adding up all the evidence and trying to make sense of it (what is a 'mealy' smell? Is the Silky Pinkgill poisonous or not? What is the difference between 'pink' and 'pale pink' spores? Does it matter that my mushrooms stems didnt look as fat? Why does only one of the books mention Lapista sordida?) I decided that I was 90% sure it was OK.

So I cooked them up in copious quantities of butter (the books say you must cook your wood blewitts), and served them to my family to see what would happen... they cam e with a warning so in the end it was only me and my father who actually tasted them, and in very small doses, and mum reminded us that only one mushroom can actually kill you, so it was fine, and they tasted fab.

This morning I had no ill efects at all so I have eaten the ret of the mushrooms along with the remains of the chicken stew which was very delivious but even better with the mushies.

And now that I check up on Lepista sordida, I actually think that is the mushroom I have been eating, and apparently it is uncommon. This is very exciting because I almost have never found uncommon things and most things always turn out to be something incredibly normal. The picture on the link really does look most exactly like my mushrooms. I'm sorry to say I didn't take my own pics this time but will try to get there tomorrow in daylight and photo the little ones that are left.

So here's to the notment and its amazing and unexpected autumnal offerings - for which I had to merely turn up. (Well there was a certain amount of nettle root pulling but that is all part of the fun.)

Kew Road Chestnuts

It was chestnut season a week or two ago and now they are over but I still have the pics. Being from the Kew Road, they are probably full of horrible pollutants but they were very sweet and delicious after a bit of roasting.  They went down well in this house and you can see the before and after in the pics. I also put some into a potato mash with Kew Road Walnuts as well. It went very well with the pheasant that Dad gave us from the Richmond Market game stall, roasted and stewed with beetroots and loads of gorgeous veg.

Chestnuts come in a prickly casing which you stamp on to pop the nut out so you don't have to get your fingers scratched.

The walnuts make a great and very durable dye but I haven't used it because we were moving back into the flat after the New Kitchen and all that, so I didn't have time to do all the processing.

I have bought some wool carders however, and will spend the winter processing the fleeces I collected in the summer. The white wool will be dyed with colours from the nettle roots and onion skins that I also have been collecting up, and when I am ready I will collect some walnut leaves which are just as good as the flesh on the outside of the nuts for dyeing with.

Why are most of the trees in the back streets just horse chestnuts and planes, when we could all be eating fabulous walnuts and chestnuts every autumn?

I even planted a Kew Road chestnut last year in a little pot and now its a healthy seedling. But I wonder where he will live, will I find him a good home?