Posts by James2

If I add tomato paste, I just pull a bit of the sauce out and mix it in, then add it back to the whole lot. I am just an amateur, so, there are probably better ways of going about it. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink consumed by...

Funny you mention McKenna, I was going to post about him in my last one. He was great! He was like the Tim Leary of this era. A bardic kind of guy. I think he believed that hallucinogenic mushrooms came from space or something. He...

Hey, sorry for taking so long to reply. I've just been running around in the woods with some fiends (err, friends). I've heard of that book. Great last name, eh? That's like the mycologist David Pilz at OSU. I knew a biology prof....

Pongi, thanks for the information! I am very interested in the taste difference between the dried and fresh porcini. I will really have to make a point of trying the fresh ones this summer! I'm going camping for three days! I'll...

I wonder if wild grape leaves are ok? Here, in southeastern Ontario, grape grows wild all over. I have noticed that the tiny grapes are just forming. Is it too late?

Pongi, you mentioned Lepiota procera in your intro post. I found a whole bunch of Lepiota naucina (= Pseudoagaricus naucinus). I have read that they +sometimes+ cause a toxic reaction. Do you have any experience with this mushroom? ...

I worked in northern BC, in a First Nations community, for a couple of years as an ethnobotanist. My next door neighbour was a shaman. Part of the processes of identifying the medicinal properties of different plants involved getting...

I did, I did! You know, it turns milky when water is added b/c some of the oils (thujone, asarone, etc.) that are present in Absinthe are soluble in alcohol and only paritally so in water so that when you add water, they precipate...

Shroomgirl, Have you ever used Polyozellus multiplex, the blue chantrelle? I found a bunch a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly, the beautiful almost iridescent blue faded upon cooking and the flavour was not as good as the...

Pongi! I don't think dried B. edulis and L. edodes taste the same! You must think I'm an idiot! I had heard that drying shiitake improves the flavour and I wondered if it were the same with porcini! I will certainly have to look for...