For dinner I roasted some baby bella mushrooms seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic. Like a shitton of garlic, I am not kidding. I had 9 or 10 mushrooms and used 5 garlic cloves. None of those puny half cloves but the full shapely ones, lest you think I was punking out. As I told my roommate, whose pupils shivered when she saw my mushrooms, “This is why I’m single. And I love it.” I added some leftover scrambled eggs with feta and scallions to a few of the mushrooms and finished them all with a dash of balsamic vinegar, which provided a harmonious counterpoint to the shrooms’ smoky earthiness. In bed, the vinegar and mushroom juices made sweet love. I adore mushrooms because they so rarely disappoint; raw, roasted, sauteed, stewed, in salad or sauce or on pizza. I can’t recall eating a dish with mushrooms where fungi made me like the dish less. The variety of shapes and textures, and their versatility, make them a joy to prepare and eat. Truly one of nature’s finest gifts, alongside fruits, nuts, pigs, and a hundred others.
the lay gastronomer 