Day 221 – Shrooms anyone?

One of the greatest Russian country-side activities is mushroom picking. It is such a shame that people don't do it in the US. Mushroom picking is so relaxing and peaceful and sometimes very rewarding.

We met at 9AM with my friend Ilya and his friend from work today. Yes, today is Thursday, but as far as "dull dusty office – incredible freshness of the Indian summer" choice is concerned, apparently it's a no brainer. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that we were going almost to Pskov – it's over 200 km from the city. Saint-Petersburg is surrounded by woods and there's absolutely no need to go that far, but of course it's much cleaner, fresher and in every which way better. So why not, I guess. For three and a half hours we drove and drove along an unbelievably picturesque road, occasionally making pit-stops for the purposes of snacking on the standard Russian camping food set – boiled eggs, boiled unpeeled potatoes, pickles, pan-friend cold drumsticks – and admiring the quietness of the forest.

On location we took our baskets and off we went into the woods. Very few things can compete with the meditational power of the quiet forest. Stepping into it, you suddenly forget about time, your worries miraculously disappear and you set out on a journey – with self, to self, if only for a few hours. I honestly didn't expect our trip to be so prolific. I'd thought it would be more of a pleasant forest walk and less of an actual mushroom yield. Boy, was I mistaken! After only a couple of hours our baskets became too heavy for dragging along and we would just leave them at the road nearby to make short trips into the woods with little plastic bags or simply carrying bouquets of awesome "noble" (as we call some of them) mushrooms in our hands on the way back. In about three hours all our available receptacles had been saturated and we were forced to return home.

That part of the trip was not as much fun though: between Ilya and I we had about 400 mushrooms picked. It took us about 4 hours of non-stop work to separate them in groups (different kinds of mushrooms are good for different things – soups, fries, pickles, etc.), clean them, wash them, cut them up, boil them and package them into zip-lock packets for deep-freeze. This is exactly what people have been doing for centuries in the Russian villages preparing for the winter months.

I feel very Russian today. And very tired – I came home at 2AM after all this fun. But the home-fries with chanterelles were to die for, and once again good food makes it all worth it!!!