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  The main thing I noticed on my recent hikes on the Niagara escarpment were Elderberries. A great number of bushes with huge amount of berries (in both green and red stage) abound. Personally, I have never tried to do anything with this berry, but this year,  I will try to make elderberry syrup. It is supposed to be a great remedy for colds and mild flu. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="49" gal_title="elderberry_2017"] In my last post I mentioned the apparent absence of the crown coral mushroom. Well, in the last several days it did show up in many places. Maybe the growth is not really abundant, but they are certainly present and were missed up until now. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="47" gal_title="crown_coral_2017"] Several days ago I was checking the south-east slope of the hill for Lactarius hygrophoides (my favorite orange milky, now moved to the new genus Lactifluus). The trees around these mushrooms  are mainly oak with some pines mixed in. Un

Summer is here. The first half of June has passed. Platterful mushrooms and Oysters were around, as expected. Somehow it seems I always stumble upon Oysters when they have already past the stage beyond useful.   Platterful mushroom usually arrive as plump, meaty gray mushrooms of a medium size. This year, despite quite wet weather in Southern Ontario, mushrooms seem somehow stunted and almost all of them had broken a cap, showing white a fleshy inside. I was expecting to get at least a small crop of Crown Coral ( Clavicorona pyxidata ), but instead Golden Coral shows in decent numbers. It is worth mentioning that some golden corals are poisonous, so gathering for eating purposes requires some experience. Of course, summer is the season of Chanterelles and Boletes. Checking some of my spots revealed the start of chanterelles. Nothing worth picking yet, but I will revisit the same spots in a few days. I was a little bit surprised to find a small cluster of two-colored boletes  this ea

A week ago, the chef from Minnesota I follow published a  post about preparation of the cow parsnip blossom. Although mushrooms are my main interest, I forage for many other things. In the spring, my favorites are chicory and dandelion greens. I guess I picked up that tradition as a child in my homeland (Croatia). The Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum) is unknown in Europe. It is native to North America and apparently quite common. I did not have any experience with this particular plant. The only thing that I knew was that it can cause a bad rash, activated by ultra violet rays. In my book, avoiding it was a good idea. Howver, the Alan Bergo post peeked my interest. I happen to know a forest fringe area with quite a presence of the Cow Parsnip,  and according to Mr. Bergo, this is the perfect time to harvest unopened blossoms for food. I put on a long sleeved shirt, pocketed a pair of gloves and went on the trail. The Cow Parsnip is a big plant and hard to miss. I must admit that unopene