There's something deeply satisfying about foraging and pickling. Jamie and I think that maybe it's a deep ancestral memory - his antecedents in English forests, mine on the continent somewhere, Germany perhaps, Slovenia. Whilst we stand on sandy Australian soil, we can still do these very basic but satisfying things - forage for mushrooms, pickle homegrown produce.
Despite a foraging friend begging to tell me where I got my pine mushrooms - the old spots are now logged and have no trees to support these orange beauties, meaty and saffron coloured juice leaking out into the pan - I keep quiet. I've found a small pocket of them in a copse of pine trees near a bike park, a place people wouldn't think to look, and for the last few years I've found enough for breakfasts over the space of a month or so. I ain't telling.
Whilst I brush dirt from the milkcaps, Jamie picked the radishes for me, and the last of the jalapeno, slicing them on the mandoline I got from IKEA, possibly the best $7 I've spent this year. I make a pickle brew of half half vinegar and water, about a tsp of salt and a tbsp of honey in preference to sugar, add thyme, bayleaves and garlic. I love pickled radish. The bitterness goes right out of it and it's delicious with rice or fried foods or just about anything. I've planted more radish now to make more - Spanish black skinned ones and a watermelon variety (pink inside, green outside).
The mushrooms I fry with garlic and butter, salt and pepper - we eat on goats cheese smeared toast, and feel satisfied.
With Love,
Hi, my name is  and I help facilitate the Hive Gardeners group here on the Hive blockchain. You can find us here. I live in a warm temperate climate near the coast in Australia. I really love growing our own food and medicinal herbs, native plants, and creating good soil for resilient plants. | |
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