It's mushroom-pickin' time!

[alexpgp]

Quite a number of the mushrooms on the property look like Russulas, which I can generally recognize, but which I've never tried to eat. There is also, however, a patch of orange mushrooms out back whose top surface is velvety, whose gills are distant, and which when bruised release a white, milky fluid that does not change color or stain any part of the mushroom.

 
A few minutes on the 'net revealed that these mushrooms are almost certainly Lactarius hygrophoroides, also known as Milky caps, and that they are edible. (A big plus was not being able to uncover - and my search-engine-fu is pretty well tuned - any poisonous lookalikes for this fungus.)

So, I picked a few of the freshest specimens from the patch (which has not seen a lawn chemical in decades) and fried them up for breakfast, along with a couple of eggs.

It's been about an hour, and it's not as if I'm expecting any adverse reaction, but all is okay. The texture of the fried mushrooms was nice, but I can't say they were particularly flavorful. They were certainly not bitter or peppery in any way (had they been, it would've invalidated my identification).

* * *I plan to stop by the hospital around 1 pm, the way I did yesterday. That way, I don't interfere with any of the morning routine or what passes for lunch at that institution.

I sure could use some more shuteye, though. (Shiloh's catching up as I type this!)

Cheers...