Mushroom Foraging

What have I been up to the last couple of days? We’ve had a couple of days of lovely sunny weather, apparently this is typical summer weather in this part of Sweden – low to mid 70s, mainly sunny, with occasional rainy days. Besides looking after the animals, I’ve spent time weeding and harvesting arugula. I made a delicious lunch of arugula salad and diced potato/meat/onion the other day. After lunch I saw the cows next door heading in to be milked. I also saw the mail carrier, Pia told me the mail is only delivered twice a week.

In the late afternoon, Pia took me mushroom foraging – it was so cool to tramp through the mossy forest looking for chanterelles, it was like walking in a fairytale. We ended up harvesting a few cups between us. Afterwards I learned how to clean the mushrooms using a special utensil that has a brush on one end to wipe off the dirt and a sharp knife on the other to cut off the bottom of the mushroom. Later, Pia cooked them in butter and we ate them as an appetizer on toasted white bread – yummy! for dinner she made a fantastic fish soup with salmon, white fish, onions, red bell pepper and a white dill sauce. Absolutely delicious!

I am really enjoying looking after the animals at Pia’s they are so sweet and gentle. Pia has created a wonderful haven for them and for herself, her bedroom is lovely and light with several chandeliers and in her bathroom she has a soaking tub underneath one of the windows with a beautiful view. So relaxing!

Today Giorgia and I spent a good part of the morning preparing food for a barbecue with Pia’s neighbor. I made potato salad and a chicken marinade, Giorgia made a ton of arugula pesto which was fantastic! In the afternoon Pia’s neighbor Karin and her sweet little Scotty dog, Helma, came over. The dogs all had a good time, running around the yard while we sat and chatted. We BBQed chicken kebabs, corn, red bell pepper, vegan sausage and halloumi burgers. Karin is a trademark attorney who spent a year as an au pair in the upper east side of New York in the early 80s. She lives most of the time in Gothenburg, but comes out for a few weeks at a time to stay at the house down the road which her grandparents built in the 1920s. She was telling us that her grandfather was quite a packrat and the entire upper floor of the house is filled with magazines from the 30s through the 60s, old stamps and all kinds of memorabilia from decades ago. That would be fascinating to check out! She loves to forage for mushrooms, so we made plans to go to a spot where she found tons of mushrooms at this time last year. It’s a real hit and miss sort of thing, you never know if there will be mushrooms or not. Sweden has a ‘right to roam’ act which allows you to walk and camp in nature anywhere except on private land.