Norteño eating

  A tip of the hat to Forager Chef Alan Bergo. This is Bergo's forager pub cheese recipe, adapted to lacto-fermented mushroom juice. Check out his website at www.foragerchef.com, and consider buying his book, The Forager Chef's Book of Flora: Recipes and Techniques for Edible Plants from Garden, Field And Forest. It's a keeper. As an artisan baker, I am also, always, a sucker for a good schmear. This most definitely qualifies.  Pub cheese and friends 4 oz. cream cheese, softened. 8 oz grated sharp cheddar or other cheese of your liking. 2 small or one large minced garlic clove 1/2 cup sour cream a splash of hot sauce 2 tablespoons lactofermented suillus or bolete juice OK, so put the cream cheese and cheddar in your food processor and wizz it up. You will need to scrape down the sides a time or two. Add the sour cream, garlic, hot sauce and mushroom juice. Process until it is a smooth and homogeneous spread. The juice contributes a flavor that is only background in shroomin

  Frozen chickenfats We are fortunate to have, where I live, a great profusion of suillus mushrooms, locally called "slippery jacks," during the mushroom season. Russians, who I think have a greater appreciation of mushrooms, call these fungi "chickenfats," possibly because of their color. My fondness for them is, locally anyway, a minority opinion. Most foragers walk right past the chickenfats because they have a high water content and, when just thrown in a pan and sauteed, have a sort of slimy consistency that many find offputting. Their loss, and a gain for those of us who know what to do with our chickenfats! So one option is to go with the texture. Saute and serve them up with an escargot butter and the texture will be right at home. Another is to harvest and dry them. I have found that when reconstituted, the chickenfats have lost any textural issues and have, on top of that, a fuller funkier flavor than their more respectable bolete cousins. The third way, i