My dearest Gary once said that I am at my most relaxed when I am outdoors.
A month or two back I was on a mission, that mission to find somewhere where I could forage for pine mushrooms. This meant time out with a special friend, who, I must say, I’ve had a few adventures with. Maggie is loads of fun and loves a bit of adventure, so a date and time was set.
On the day, I met Maggie at hers, transferred my baskets to her truck and we headed off, chatting, laughing, catching up and looking for a suitable place to forage. Many plantations were off limits due to logging, but when we had almost given up, the last one on the list was logging free. She parked the truck, we gathered our tools (baskets and knives, and entered the edge of the plantation. As we collected our bounty of mushrooms and pine cones we both found ourselves becoming more and more relaxed in our surrounds, wandering off in different directions, and coming together again, this led us to chatting about forest bathing and the benefits afforded by such a simple pastime.
I was a little surprised to hear that Maggie had never foraged for mushrooms and wasn’t game to try the ones that I had collected. But that was Ok, I brought them all home and cooked, pickled and dehydrated them, Mushroom Bourguinon anyone?
