I Miss Picking Wild Mushrooms

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I miss Maine. Maine is where I gained so many skills I believed would be useful later on in life, skills that had enough nutrition to sustain me. Alas, for the most part, I was dead wrong. An Aromatherapy certification was no guaranty that my magical healing blends or my one-of-a-kind e-course would be worthy of a successful future business venture. My stint as a Newspaper Correspondent/Op-Ed/Feature Writer and Freelancer author of 4 successful articles in Lake Living Magazine would never propel me forward into a successful journalism or freelance career and my totally awesome gardening skills would never set me on the path to selling delicious and healthy organically grown vegetables at the local Farmer’s Market or gain me any credibility as a landscape developer. No, the only skill that actually managed to sustain me in any small way was my talent for picking and processing wild mushrooms. I shined at identifying the choice edible species, and still do, though I can’t find the many delicious and rare varieties here in Alaska that I gathered so abundantly back home in Maine. I miss stumbling upon those beautiful pale yellow and red Chanterelles, the highly-prized and fragrant Black Trumpets, the meaty and scrumptious King and other Boletes and veiled Painted Suillis’. I miss the feathery Corals that when dried resembled the more elusive Black Trumpets, the pounds and pounds of polypores like Sulfur Shelf and ginormous Giant Puffballs I always met and gathered on my daily walks and explorations. All of these aforementioned species are found in plenty all around Western Maine and parts of Western New Hampshire where spent some of the best years of my life. I have found a bolete or two here in Alaska, some Shaggy Mane and what I think is Chaga, but that’s just about all so far. No real variety or plenty like back home, though I have heard from a few who know that True Morels grow here too, mostly in burned out areas. Well, if I’m going to resume and continue to hone my search and gather skills, I guess I have my research cut out for me or, maybe I should just think very seriously about, going back home.