A Day In the Woods
We had been hearing rumors of boletes being found at higher elevations, so Amy loaded Michael, Walter and me into the CrossTrek and we headed north of Trout Lake. ...
Good Afternoon
8/29/25 85f (29.4c) 3:00 Clear sky with a few mosquitoes. Mike, Walter and I made an excursion into the woods to escape the heat and look for mushrooms. It felt a good ten degrees cooler in the forest. ...
Good Afternoon
Amy's Uncle Joe and Aunt Judy are visiting from back east. I collected their autographs, then we spent the rest of the day wandering downtown Hood River. ...
Good Afternoon
8/11/25 3:00 105f (40.5c) Clear sky, no wind in town. I had been cooped up in the house with this cold for eleven days. Walter had been cooped up here with me. We were both going stir crazy. I was feeling better, enough...
Good Evening
8~9~25 7:30 80f Clear, blue sky with the sunning dropping low in the west, casting golden beams of light through the almost invisible haze of fire season. I painted the back decks yesterday, and soaked the soft spots with Minwax wood hardener. This morning I filled...
Good Morning
6/29/26 5:30 53F (11.6C) Overcast with a brisk wind. Gray clouds whip past. Here and there they fray and tear, revealing the promise of blue sky. A blue jay imitates the woodpecker and taps a tattoo with its beak. Yesterday the rabbit kindled 9 kits, all alive....
Good Morning
6/28/26 5:30 Cool and wet. It rained hard last night, finally tapering off this morning as we pack up to go home. Buttered cornbread with milk and molasses for breakfast. The molasses poured slowly in the Junuary chill and I had to use the ax to cut the...
Good Morning
6/27/28 5:00 Cold and raining. It rained all night and is still raining now. Last night the fire struggled to keep ahead of the drips and was mostly successful. I was able to rekindle flames from the embers earlier this morning. Occasional gusts shake the...
Good Morning
6/26/26 5:00 Cold, calm with sprinkles and intermittent drizzle. They had a bear raid this camp earlier in the week. That's okay. I have bear spray. In the truck. Parked at the other end of camp, down by the highway. Up at 2 for a dash to the latrine and again...
Good Morning
6/25/26 5:15 53F (13.3C) Calm and dry. Haze is creeping into the blue sky. Rain is forecast for this evening. The canyon is still in shadow. It is quiet this morning, only a couple of birds calling to each other. The rooster is sleeping in. The truck is...
Camp Rice & Mushrooms
https://vimeo.com/421069177 I cooked this on my Biolite Campstove2, using pellets for fuel. Any campstove will work. The trick is to fashion a double boiler. I broke up several small branches and tossed them in my large camp pot to form a trivet. I put...
Take & Bake Pizza with Wild Mushrooms
https://vimeo.com/419668102 Of course, take and bake pizza is a cheat but this is, after all, Cooking For Guys. Besides, this post is as much a brag about a successful mushroom hunt as it is about pizza. Amy, Andy and I took the sidecars up the ridge to...
Crab-Stuffed Morels
I returned to a favorite patch of morels for a third picking the other day. Holy Smokes! They weren't just plentiful, they were giant! These were some of the biggest morels I've ever found, several of them were 7" tall with caps hovering between 4" and 4.5", one of...
Mushrooms on Toast
For a simple, quick breakfast it is hard to beat mushrooms on toast. In the spring I use morels, in the fall, chanterelles. Other mushrooms can be substituted. Ingredients toast fresh mushrooms - whatever is in season onion or shallots minced garlic...
Asparagus and Morels
Several years ago, a local timber company locked down the woods behind my house due to fire danger. One of their fallers set fire to the ridge the very next day. It burned for a week. The following spring, we went up there and harvested morels from the scorched...
