Fungus Among Us

I suppose you could buy mushrooms from other people than the Garrone family. I just don't know why you would, unless you live in New York, or Chicago. And even then, I'm pretty sure they ship.

I first met John Garrone of Far West Fungi over 20 years ago, when I moved to San Francisco and happened on the Civic Center market. John told me recently that it was somewhere else at the time, around the corner or something. But I remember him at pretty much the same location he is now, not far from the escalator to the underground I was probably taking to work. Maybe I was on lunch hour.

It's not just the mushrooms, although Far West Fungi probably has everything you could ever want in that department. It's the absolute friendliness--not the kind of "Fly Me!" friendliness we see a lot of these days, but the kind that comes from an obvious love of people--with which John greets everyone.

I can't remember ever not loving mushrooms. Even the canned ones. I know: They have that weird texture, they smell funny, and if you put an open can and a fork in front of me I would probably finish the can before you came back.

When I was in high school the local wing of the French National Honor Society flew to the place where people really speak the language. We did the French equivalent of what Europeans come to see in these parts. Here, it's Las Vegas, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, and maybe Monterey. There, it's the Eiffel Tower, the Loire Valley, Mont St. Michel, and Montmartre, where everyone visits a church called Le Sacré Coeur.

I remember two things from that trip: the castles in the Loire Valley, and lunch after we went to church: Coq au Vin aux Champignons.

To the other kids champignon was just a long way of saying mushroom. And mushrooms, they agreed, were gross. Did I really want them?

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

John Garrone has very good manners, so you have to look closely to see him rolling his eyes as he hears me tell yet another customer about the Miso-Soba Soup from The Book of Miso. John's interest in miso soup ia on a par with his interest in Brussels sprouts.

Someone once asked him, "What do you like to do with Brussels sprouts?"

"Personally, I throw them out," he said.

Miso Soup with Buckwheat Noodles and Eggs

(adapted from The Book of Miso by Aikiko Aoyagi and William Shurtleff)

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 small onion, thinly sliced or 1/2 bunch scallions, cut in long strips

1 zucchini, sliced into half coins

3-4 large or 6-8 small shiitaké mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup water, stock, or dashi

2 oz. soba (buckwheat) noodles, broken into 4-inch lengths and cooked*

1 tablespoon red, barley, or hatcho miso (the original says 3T but that's overkill, to me)

2 eggs

1 tablespoon minced parsley (optional)

Heat your favorite soup pan and coat with oil. Add the onion and sauté until transparent, then add mushrooms and cook until just shy of being done. Follow with the zucchini, also cooked till almost done. Next, add water and bring to a boil, then the cooked noodles and return to the boil. Place the miso in a bowl and add some of the hot liquid, whisk to combine, and return to the soup. Now increase the heat to medium-high and carefully break in the eggs, keeping the yolks whole. Cook for 1 minute more, or until the whites are just firm. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

This is like French onion soup meets poached eggs meets mushrooms and noodles. It should be illegal.

*There are rituals for cooking soba noodles. You cook them partway, put them into very cold water, drain them, cook them some more, back in the cold water, drain again, cook them some more--and then go out and shoot yourself because they are still not perfect.

If you have all that time on your hands, let me just say that Honey, do I have filing for you. If not, I say just cook them, deliver them to their winter vacation, drain them, and then add them to the soup at the proper time.

If anyone complains, my cooking instructions are as follows:
Don't invite them again.

But what if they live with you?
Then you already know what to do.

©2009-2014 Laynie Tzena.