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It turned out my counterpart Alex was a renter, too, and was living in a place on Pagosa Lake. He was indeed a translator, but happily for the both of us, he concentrated on working exclusively from English into Russian, while I work only from Russian into English. I do not recall the first time Galina and I visited him and his family - his wife, son, and mother - but I do remember the second time.
It was sometime in August, and when I walked through the door I could not help but notice the strings of threaded something that were hanging overhead in both the living and dining rooms. These turned out to be pieces of Suillus mushrooms that, as it turned out, had sprung up all around their rental house in the course of the normal unfolding of the universe.
Had just about anyone else been living at that house at the time, the mushrooms would have either gone unnoticed or would have been dismissed as a nuisance growth of some kind. But for a family of people from Russia, from Siberia (not all that far, in fact, from where Galina had been born), the mushrooms were instantly recognizable as old (and quite edible) friends.
In fact, noted Alex, they had made mushroom soup with some of their harvest, and would we care to try some?
"Sure," I said, without hesitation, and Galina went along. But when the moment of truth finally came, and I held my first spoon of homemade mushroom soup between the bowl and my mouth, I could not suppress that small, puny voice that asked, simply, "Are you about to commit suicide?"
The soup was delicious.
A couple of weeks later, I drove out to Williams Lake to catch some fish, and didn't catch any at all. (In a way, I felt like the fictitious character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who drove a truck around the British Isles, and never quite understood that it was his destiny to always be caught in bad weather: When I go fishing, I always hope for the best, but somehow manage to always go home empty-handed, which makes me wonder if that's my destiny, as an angler. But I digress...)
As I walked back to the car, I saw this huge mushroom growing just off the path. As I was going to be passing by Alex's place in the near future anyway, I carefully detached the mushroom from the ground and took it with me.
I held the mushroom in front of me as Alex opened the door, and his jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
"That's a white mushroom!" he said, in Russian. I learned later that folks around these parts, when they refer to this mushroom at all, call it either a "king bolete" or a Boletus edulis, in short, one of a very select group of mushrooms sought after for, among other qualities, their taste.
It was a clear case of beginner's luck, but I was hooked.
Cheers...
It was sometime in August, and when I walked through the door I could not help but notice the strings of threaded something that were hanging overhead in both the living and dining rooms. These turned out to be pieces of Suillus mushrooms that, as it turned out, had sprung up all around their rental house in the course of the normal unfolding of the universe.
Had just about anyone else been living at that house at the time, the mushrooms would have either gone unnoticed or would have been dismissed as a nuisance growth of some kind. But for a family of people from Russia, from Siberia (not all that far, in fact, from where Galina had been born), the mushrooms were instantly recognizable as old (and quite edible) friends.
In fact, noted Alex, they had made mushroom soup with some of their harvest, and would we care to try some?
"Sure," I said, without hesitation, and Galina went along. But when the moment of truth finally came, and I held my first spoon of homemade mushroom soup between the bowl and my mouth, I could not suppress that small, puny voice that asked, simply, "Are you about to commit suicide?"
The soup was delicious.
A couple of weeks later, I drove out to Williams Lake to catch some fish, and didn't catch any at all. (In a way, I felt like the fictitious character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who drove a truck around the British Isles, and never quite understood that it was his destiny to always be caught in bad weather: When I go fishing, I always hope for the best, but somehow manage to always go home empty-handed, which makes me wonder if that's my destiny, as an angler. But I digress...)
As I walked back to the car, I saw this huge mushroom growing just off the path. As I was going to be passing by Alex's place in the near future anyway, I carefully detached the mushroom from the ground and took it with me.
I held the mushroom in front of me as Alex opened the door, and his jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
"That's a white mushroom!" he said, in Russian. I learned later that folks around these parts, when they refer to this mushroom at all, call it either a "king bolete" or a Boletus edulis, in short, one of a very select group of mushrooms sought after for, among other qualities, their taste.
It was a clear case of beginner's luck, but I was hooked.
Cheers...
