Two days ago, I went on a li'l hike with my niece and nephew. We descended their terraced, one hectare garden. It basically contains a mini forest ( especially due to the super rapidly growing and spreading mimosa 'trees' ) and is super green and lush now, thanks to a couple of weeks of abundant rain.
Suffice to say that the kids had some excess energy, on a day off from school and that walking down to the river, meandering below their land, in the light rain, seemed like the right thing to do.
I also told them to focus on ( spotting ) mushrooms, among other things.
Before I forget, this is a follow up to yesterday's post Teaching Kids Valuable Skills - Part I - Burglary. Don't miss that one!
Oh and talking about missing...
In case you wondered what happened to ( my book ) The Monster of Disco...
The Monster of Disco had lost its MOJO,
it had stopping dancing
entirely
and felt like a JOJO
Up
and
Down,
its thoughts were racing
on the ground
its feet kept pacing
TO BE CONTINUED
after my kid sitting adventures
I won't go into the foraging details. I am ( still ) not an expert, I know some basics, but there is one type of mushroom, called the 'parasol' or 'umbrella mushroom', that is safe to eat and that I can identify for sure ( and taught the kids about ), after 5 years in this region. On our walk, we discovered that there appeared to be plenty of them, in their garden. So we ended up plucking a handful of them and brought them home, but not before the kids had made a mess of themselves, playing in the wet sand near the river, powering up their natural immunity.
Back home, the kids starting acting annoyingly again, hurting each other the way brothers and sisters tend to do and I involved them in the cooking and burger making, so they could make even more of a mess.
Guess who had to do the dishes later?
The kids were not impressed, especially my niece who finds most food - aside from candy - mèhhh! at the moment, but today, for lunch, I enjoyed the remaining mushroom burgers and green peas ( that my niece calls 'kikkererwten', literally translated from the Dutch for chickpeas: frog = 'kikker' and peas are 'erwten'. I guess she does this because they are green, like most frogs out here. I pimped the dish with some garlic, tahini and cheese, for extra flavor. The burgers honestly tasted somewhat bland, yesterday.
Today this meal, built around foraged fungi, tasted quite yummy!
The following pics were taken some other day and show different kind of mushrooms/ fungi that I photographed but can't identify, as well as my sister's garden, the river, two swans and one of my sister's cats.
Enjoy the view!
And let me add that foraging is a super important skill, as the fresher the food, the healthier and what better thing to eat than the stuff that grows in your own garden?
I am literally and figuratively tired of all the imported and store bought food that is so old by the time it reaches us that it merely makes us tired/ drains us.
Stay healthy!
The view from the terrace, one morning, a couple of days ago.
Not the worst view for muddy socks
