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Outdoors
Mushroom Madness:
Fungi aficionados will strike it rich in the mountains east of Cottage
Grove.
Performance
Bonding Rituals:
Storytelling and great theater.
Food
Edible Botany:
New book dares us to serve Habanero Pumpkin Pudding for the holidays.
Plus: Booknotes.
Mushroom
Madness
Fungi
aficionados will strike it rich in
the mountains east of Cottage Grove.
By
James Johnston
A lot of Eugeneans have a hard time figuring
out what to do with themselves during dreary November days. But not
mushroom hunters. For these folks, the first cold rains are their
cue to head for the hills.
Last week, I enlisted the services of two experienced
mushroomers: the Grower's Market's Matt Watkins and the American Lands
Alliance's George Sexton, for a tour of the prime mushroom hunting
grounds along the Brice Creek trail east of Cottage Grove. The dank
old growth forest along Brice Creek is the perfect spot to enjoy a
crisp autumn hike and acquaint oneself with the myriad mushroom species
of the Oregon Cascades.
Directions: From Eugene, drive I-5 South for approximately
20 miles. Take Exit 174 (Cottage Grove/Dorena Lake). At the light,
take a left onto Row River Road. After four or five miles, this road
turns into Shore View Drive and then back into Row River Road. Just
stay on the main road all the way to the trailhead. You'll go past
Sharp's Creek and Layng Creek and through the small villages of Culp
Creek and Disston, following the signs for Brice Creek for about 22
miles from the freeway. The western trailhead begins about a mile
inside the Umpqua National Forest boundary, after the road narrows
to one lane. The river bottoms on your right between the western trailhead
and Cedar Creek are lousy with fungi.
The best guide to mushrooms is David Arora's Mushrooms
Demystified. On this day we're making use of Arora's excellent
pocket guide to western mushrooms, All That the Rain Promises and
More-- . We use the guide to key out dozens of 'shrooms,
including velvet foot, boletes, aminatas, short-stemmed
russalas, angel wings, scaly stalked psilocybes, violet
corts and bleeding milk caps. My favorite mushroom name: "Questionable
Stropharia" (Stropharia ambigua), a pleasant yellow mushroom
with shaggy cotton-white stalk and gills.
Some of Arora's notes are pretty funny. When we key
out Alaska golds, he writes, "Prized by some people for its fine flavor,
but poisonous to others -- It should never be served to large
groups--"
Later in the day we cruise up the 2232 road to the
old growth forest in unit 8 of the Blodgett timber sale (the 740 spur
road on the right). Here we find chanterelles, fried chicken mushrooms
(they don't taste anything like chicken) and hedgehogs, all delicious
edible mushrooms. Brice Creek, like most watersheds managed by the
Forest Service, has two faces. The face the agency likes to show to
the public is the beauty strip along the creek. But take any of the
logging roads that branch off from the main road and you'll find thousands
of acres of clearcuts, with more on the way. Blodgett is just one
of many taxpayer subsidized timber sales slated for logging in the
Cottage Grove Ranger District of the Umpqua National Forest (for more
information, see http://www.cascwild.org/cg/main.html).
The Brice Creek trail is open all year and has lots
to offer. The easy five-and-a-half-mile-long path, much of it wheelchair
accessible, follows the exceptionally clear waters of Brice Creek
past a number of beautiful waterfalls and deep pools. At the eastern
end of the trail you can connect with the three-and-a-half-mile-long
Trestle Creek Falls loop trail. This trail climbs about a thousand
feet and takes you underneath upper Trestle Falls, one of the
most gorgeous cascades in the state. You'll also find a lush carpet
of maidenhair ferns and spectacular basalt formations.
And, of course, lots more mushrooms.
Back to Top
Bonding
Rituals
Storytelling
and great theater.
By
Aria Seligmann
The weather's changed at last, into damp,
drizzly evenings made for lighting incense and candles, curling up
in warm, soft blankets in front of a crackling fire with that special
someone, turning to each other in tender embrace and with lips almost
touching whispering, "tell me a story."
Oh wait, this is the Performance column. I'm supposed
to tell you to go out. Yes, put out that fire, grab your sweetie (you
can keep the blankets on) and drive straight to Very Little Theatre
(VLT) on Saturday for an evening of great stories by some of Eugene's
best tellers. "Tellebration" is for adult audiences only (some of
the subject matter is not suitable for children) and includes Jeff
Defty, Danny McGloughlin, Barb Stephens-Newcomb, Celeste Rose, Robert
Rubinstein, and Yvonne Young. The event will feature personal stories,
famous pieces from literature, folk tales from around the world, and
stories peculiar to America.
If you go, you won't be alone. The night is sponsored
by the National Storytelling Network, which has both local and international
chapters. That means thousands of people around the world will be
gathered in similar places for similar evenings, in the ultimate bonding
ritual.
Tellabration is at 7:30 pm Saturday, Nov. 17 at VLT's
Stage Left. $10 at the door.
What a month for the arts! Gypsy Caravan packed the
Hult's Silva Hall on a Monday, of all nights, proving that people
turn up for what appeals to them -- programmers take note. And
the collaboration between the Oregon Mozart Players and Eugene Ballet
Company for A Soldier's Tale sold out the Soreng last Saturday.
Too bad the acoustics didn't show off the caliber of the OMP's sound,
but the evening was charming.
What helped both shows tremendously was publicity,
so what's up with Willamette Repertory Theatre? The Rep put on a fabulous
benefit show on Nov. 1. Actors from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
came to the Hult, read poetry, read Dr. Seuss, threw in some Shakespeare
skits and a mouth-watering monologue from Life is a Dream.
What a fun, witty, smart night.
So why weren't more of you there? Yes, the tickets
were spendy, but it was a benefit for a theater company committed
to high-quality work. One theory is you didn't know about it in time,
because we didn't know about it in time to tell you. This is the Rep's
number: 343-9903; call and tell them you read EW and you want
to know when they have a show.
Caught Angels in America Part I last
Thursday and Part II on Friday, and that's still going on this
weekend at the UO. You really don't want to miss it. Yes, each part
is three hours long and it's definitely a period piece, chronicling
the outbreak of AIDS during the Reagan era. We know more about the
disease now and drugs are keeping victims alive longer. That said,
it is still amazing theater. And despite, or because of, the topic,
the script is funny. You will laugh, a lot.
Director, cast, and crew meet the demands of a challenging
show. The staging is technically complicated, especially in Part
II, and the result is tremendous. The ensemble is very strong
and nails Tony Kushner's difficult, brilliant script. Director John
Schmor has done an excellent job with this huge production. See calendar
for which part plays when.
Over the hill, Brighton Beach Memoirs continues
at LCC's Blue Door Theatre. Downtown, Deux Femmes continues
at Lord Leebrick and P.S. Your Cat is Dead continues at ACE
Annex, as part of Actors Cabaret's "Year of the Comedy."
Back to Top
Edible
Botany
New book
dares us to serve Habanero
Pumpkin Pudding for the holidays.
Just in time for the gluttonous season
beginning now and ending with New Year recriminations, Thomas Fox
Averill has written a family history/ cookbook to keep you company
-- and provide sympathy and inspiration. Reading this might even
help you navigate the minefields of family history, consumerism and
emotional starvation.
The story generally follows a young man, Wes, coming
of age in his family's restaurants. His mother has a catering business,
serving mostly Old World food, and his father runs the Tsil Café,
where only New World foods are served. No wheat, cheese or butter,
onion, garlic, or anything native to anywhere but the Americas. The
café is named after the Tsil Kacina, a Hopi spirit who "stuffs
red peppers in the mouths of runners overtaken in a race." Not the
most nurturing father, but our hero Wes manages to come through his
childhood alienation, teen angst, and young adult lack of direction
with his own style intact. Wes finally achieves the qualities of the
tomato, "various, negotiable -- a good base for sauces, fine
garnish for salads -- bright as blood, big as a heart, sweet
and acidic."
For those facing the family again, perhaps for the
first time since last winter's holiday rounds, it's nice to be reminded
that all families experience troubles: bitter infidelity, the sour
awkwardness of family strife, and loneliness. All the things to make
us lose our appetite are present in this season. In fact the chapter
in this book filled with Thanksgiving recipes is called "Anti-Appetite:
Family Legends."
Luckily, included too are all the sweet and savory
things to bring the appetite back: love, laughter, sex, forgiveness
and acceptance. Interlaced with his story is a veritable textbook
of American edible botany: stories of Corn Mother, who killed herself
to feed her starving people, fascinating little tidbits of culinary
trivia, footnotes on each food, with its definition, history and uses
in cooking. Averill covers everything from beans to tobacco, pumpkins
to chia seeds, with a focus on foods native to the Americas.
The recipes are really the backbone of the
book. They often call for exotic ingredients, like the Papas Estilo
Diablo purple potato salad ("a church-supper nightmare full of hot
peppers, tomatillos and peanuts") or the Avocado-Gooseberry Pudding
with Raspberry Sauce. Another good recipe included is the Habanero
Pumpkin Pudding with Ancho Maple Sauce. It burns the wintry gloom
right out of your kitchen. I made the tamer version; it still has
quite a kick.
Recipe for Habanero Pumpkin Pudding with Ancho Maple
Sauce:
Pudding: 2 cups pumpkin, boiled, 2 habanero peppers,
seeded (1/2 for the sane), 3 allspice seeds, ground, 3 tablespoons
New Mexico red chili powder (1 for the mild), maple syrup to taste
-- usually about 1/2 cup, salt to taste. Blend the ingredients
together and refrigerate. Top with sauce.
Ancho Maple Sauce: 2 large anchos, seeded and cut
into small pieces (1/2 for the tame), 1 cup maple syrup, 1 tablespoon
hot pepper vinegar, dash of salt. Combine ingredients and simmer until
very thick. Spoon over pudding.
Some other intriguing recipes include Sweet Potato
Fries with Chipotle Barbecue Sauce, Crab Cakes with Pineapple Mango
Salsa, Wes and Pablito's Poblano Mole, Guava and Chocolate Dressing,
and Cranberry Chili Pesto. Spice is the variety of life, and the stronger
the burn the more you know you're alive.
Food is love, love is food; it's our human condition.
Wes's dad tells him when he asks if his parents still love each other:
"Love is always there -- it's what you live by. It's like food.
Sometimes it gives you great pleasure. Sometimes, you just eat it
to live. Either way, it sustains you, and you're lucky to have it."
Secrets of the Tsil Café, a Novel with Recipes,
by Thomas Fox Averill, is available through BlueHen Books, an imprint
of Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, 2001, price: $24.95.
Back to Top
Book Notes:
Nancy Hopps will speak on "Now
More Than Ever, Peace Must Begin Within," based on her relaxation
and stress management audio titles, at 7:30 pm Nov. 27 in UO Knight
Library Browsing Room. ...Irish novelist, playwright, biographer and
essayist Edna O'Brien reads at 7:30 pm Nov. 28 in Arlene Schnitzer
Concert Hall for Portland Arts and Lectures series. (503) 227-2583.
...Altogether some 70 writers, artists and musicians will take part
in this year's free Authors and Artists Fair. Refreshments
will be available, and a portion of sales at the events benefits the
Eugene Library Foundation. Some 28 authors will sign books from 7-10
pm on Dec. 8 at the Eugene Public Library downtown. From 7-10 pm Dec.
1 the Sheldon branch library will feature science fiction and fantasy
authors. From 1-3 pm on Dec. 2 at the Bethel branch library, seven
authors and illustrators will sign their children's books. ...Leonard
Cirino is the featured reader at 5 pm Dec. 8, Tsunami Books' Poetry
in the Round
series.
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