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When the producers from Planet Green first approached me to host and cook for them, I immediately said we should forage for wild mushrooms. I've always dreamed about getting lost in the woods and picking baskets of the delectable fungus but never had the opportunity until I moved up to Sonoma County in northern California last year.
I play for the camera like I've never been out in the field routing for fungi but that my friends was acting! Ha ha! In reality I've gone on the hunt for shrooms a handful of times. Mostly just to look at the beauties for fear that picking and eating the wrong one would bring instant death — I'm serious, this is an extremely dangerous hobby! You should forage for mushrooms with an expert in the field!
My best foray was last November with a group of expert fanatics who were on hand to identify the good, the bad and the ugly. The number of shrooms I found was staggering and there were many edible suckers: gold chanterelles, matsutake, porcini, cocoras, etc. Check out my photos... that mixed basket made a killer risotto and that giant poisonous punk (named a Devil's Bolete) was completely underground before I dug it up!
About a day before the shoot I was told to bring my chef coat. What chef coat? I've always been an apron man. I decided to improvise with my Japanese jimbe... kinda looks like the garb of a sushi chef. I don't think the producers liked it though. The next week I picked up my black chef's Jacket... made by Dickies no doubt, polyester baby.
I'm so thankful for my aunt Evelyn and her friend Walter who let us shoot the mushroom foray on his property. Very gracious of him! He told us that in December he has mushrooms with caps two feet in diameter!
We shot this segment at the very end of shroom season, I think we got the last harvest of Chanterelles this year. They're definitely one of my favorite varieties with their funky sweetness. David Campbell, the most awesome mushroom man, unearthed those amanitas—ones I woulda shrugged off as dangerous and inedible. MAN they were absolutely delicious, perhaps my favorites of the day. The morels are really cool too, they have a nutty forest flavor that is addictive. So good!!!
Being my first time to rock it for the cook off, I was freaking out. I sweat something awful. Chef LaNoue was fierce. Super nice, a totally rad person, but her dish scared the hell out of me. I'm pretty sure the only reason I won the cook off was that I kept it simple, stayed true to my dish and really amped the flavor of the shrooms. I didn't want to mask their flavor at all and made one of the best risottos of my life! But honestly, I owe it all to the mushrooms!
Here's a link to David Campbell's outfit
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