Finding my morel compass

Finding a morel is a bit like searching for right and wrong. Once you recognize what is right before your eyes you see it everywhere around you. Morels are often very hard to spot in the forest leaves as they blend right in. Today my morel compass led me to a patch of grass where seeing what was right was easy. Sometimes what is right is wrong like it may be right to pick your nose because it’s clogged but you are at a cocktail party so it is just plain wrong. “Somethings are just wrong, like a fat man in a thong”-John Hiatt.

 Today I was blessed and this evening the Cactus Lounge family will feast on the shrooms with one of Uncle Donny’s strip loin steaks, some fiddleheads and a nice glass of red wine.  Foraging is something I like to do. One of my favourite child hood memories was when my Uncle Jimmie and I would take a break from the pottery and hit the raspberry and black cap patch. We always ate more than we took home for ice cream but life’s guilty pleasures are like that. I was a lucky kid to have my uncle set my moral compass at a very early age. I wonder how kids brought up in violence and crime learn to recognize what is right. I hope some influence takes them by the hand  and  they set out to find their morels.  

It is the right thing to do eating what is around you. Probably the best thing to do for the environment would be if we all did a little more foraging. No fuel burned to bring the kiwi thousands of miles to our table. Almost everyone in this town hunts deer and turkey. They are probably better environmentalists than most.  I know let’s shed a tear for Bambi. I know as a kid I did.