clamming quest

Corey and I went clamming this weekend with some friends in Seaside and had (to put it quite simply) a blast. We stayed in a little duplex right by the shore. The place is owned by one of J's (Corey's co-partner in the Mushroom Guys Milwaukie Farmer's Market enterprise) friends. From the doorstep, could walk straight out and head down to the beach. Much fun was had by all.


Little clam butts. We cut these off and used them as fish bait.


Slicing and peeling.


OK, so admittedly they look pretty gross. Kinda squishy, while simultaneously vaginal and phallic. But I promise you they were scrumpdiddlyumptious.


As picturesque as they come: the razor clam, soon to be in my belly (after 3+ hours of cleaning and preparing, minus cooking and hunting time)


The sea is good to us, as exemplified by her exquisite bounty.


Egging and breading.


The final product, fried to perfection and eaten with tartar sauce. So, so worth it.


Lacterius deliciosus, or a milkcap. The Russians dry it with salt and eat it like potato chips. Contrary to the scientific name, this mushroom is actually not that delicious, and was picked more out of novelty and curiosity rather than for a culinary purpose.


We walked by the seaside. I mean, we were in a town called Seaside. So, yeah.


For fishermen, maybe? In South America you see crosses on the sides of the road everywhere, which I kind of miss in the U.S.




Both of these are Amanita mascaria. These were everywhere! The Oregon coast is really pretty ridiculous. It must be in the top 10 most fertile mushroom habitats on the planet, if not #1.


We walked down to the jetty to go fishing.


Unfortunately the waves were a little crazy and wild. The sea is a harsh mistress.


The landscape felt straight out of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" for me.


The J-dar




I was excited we could see our shadows. The weather was beautiful and sunny all weekend; we really lucked out.


The terrible trio, representing three respective generations of mushroomery.


That white-capped dome is Mt. St. Helens!


Hygrocybe conica, or witches' hat.


The sun sets around 5pm now. We went clamming at night because of the low tide, setting out between 6-7pm. The tide won't be as low for another three months.


Getting our clamming equiptment ready. Basically, you stick that tube in the sand, wiggle your hips and huff and puff while you try to push it down as far as possible, press your thumb over the little hole at the top and then use all your strength (while trying not to strain your puny back and shoulder muscles) to pull it out of the ground. The tube sucks up the sand with suction, hopefully pulling the clam up with it. It usually took two to three times to get the little buggers. They like to burrow away quickly from you in the sand. It took me a while to catch one, but I got the hang of it once I learned what to look for in the sand: to me, it looked like a small indented volcano poking out, sometimes with water spurting out.


I wore my hiking boots because I was stupid and didn't bring any other shoes with me. They got very wet and sandy and smelly.


The moon was crazy that night. Huge and yellow and cheesy.


We sucked ourselves up a dungeness crab as well, much to our surprise. We were initially terrified to see this huge lump moving under the sand after we pulled the clam out. Much to our relief, it wasn't Cthulu.


Man-on-horseback, one of the few edible mushrooms around on the coast during this time of year.


We dined like kings all weekend, climaxing with this meal: halibut wrapped in prosciutto with spinach salad with blue cheese and pear. ........... words fail me ..........


Suzy Q, chief chef. My taste buds applaud her and bow down in eternal servitude.


Did I mention that there also was fresh crab, dipped in hot butter?

And to wrap this entry up, here are the mushroom guys themselves, with J balancing a mushroom on his nose while Corey attempts to push a mushroom into J's ear. Even on a clamming quest, mushrooms still have the spotlight with this crowd.

Mushroom hunting photos

Mushroom hunting at the coast with the Guidry boys, aka Corey and his father, whom he affectionately refers to as "Pops," among other things.


This shrew died shortly after this photograph. It was pretty traumatizing. It just lay down in the middle of the road and stopped breathing. Corey and I were like, "...did that just DIE?" We witnessed (and perhaps were the cause of) the passage of its soul into the Shrew Netherworld.


There are crazy trees in Oregon too.


Amanita phalloides, aka the death cap. DON'T EAT THIS MUSHROOM! IT WILL KILL YOU IF YOU EAT IT. This is one of the three deadly poisonous mushrooms in Oregon.


Foxgloves contain atropine, a tropane alkoloid. It has a similar chemical in it that's similar to the deadly amanita. It's a stimulant... when people die of drug overdoses, they inject a chemical similar to this into their hearts, and it gets their hearts beating again. Think Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction."


Amanita mascaria! The eponymous mushroom from popular culture and likely the most familiar mushroom in the world. It is thought of as being the soma of the Rigveda (an ancient Indian collection of Sanskrit hymns). There's a substance that people use call the "soma," which brings dreams. That's this mushroom right here. They were EVERYWHERE on the coast this week... never seen anything like it. They're mycorhizal, so they grow with the roots of trees. People would dry them and use them as Christmas tree decorations because they grow with pine trees. Let's hope Little Billy in the suburbs never got his fat Game Boy playing lips around any. Then again, let's hope he did.


The oyster, our hero from Ecuador, dwells here in Oregon as well.


Reishi (ganaderma lucidum)... I remember the first time I went mushroom hunting with the Brian and the Jess they found oodles of these... you can make a disgusting tasting but very healthy tea out of them... Corey taught the recipe to Don Delio (our shaman friend... god, that sounds weird! I can definitely say I never thought I would have a "shaman friend"). It's used for cancer treatment, immune disorders and for cleaning the blood and has been used in Asian medicine since ancient times. I love that phrase, "ancient times." It makes me think of the phase he is not nearly so old as the ancient ones.


A pristine chanterelle. God, we found so many this year! It was a bumper crop, as they say. Corey and Jay were gathering 40-50 pounds in ONE TRIP and selling them all on Sundays at the market. On Friday and Saturday nights our refrigerator would be full of giant paper bags, with stray pieces of dirty and grass all over the floor and kitchen counters.


A cauliflower mushroom. I'd never seen one of these before. Damn, they look weird. But they're also really good. Corey's friend and fellow mushroom partner in crime Matt gave us this one after finding four or five.


He fried some up for us and it was delicious, sweet and wonderful. Corey said that some people cook them in the style of pasta too... peeling them off and then boiling them in a big old pot.




Corey and Jay at the Milwaukie farmer's market. See that ghetto ass sign? Yeah, I made that, with tape from the Dollar Store.


Our latest bounty. Corey picked so many of them he was carrying them in his shirt and they were falling out. We had porcini burger for dinner last night. It made it all worth it, even the falling down the mountain 40 feet and landing in a blackberry patch.