They're Out There
“My mycosensors are topping the scales,” writes Sporeboy, an online mushroom enthusiast. “I know where they are, I think…[but] ask anyone who hunts them for information, and you will be misled.” Avid as Ahab, but without the vengeance, morel hunters pick a crop as elusive as game, only much, much slower. Dogged as prospectors, (or trout fishermen, or surfers), they’re tight-lipped and competitive. Self-taught naturalists, careful researchers, tireless trekkers, they’re each seeking the sweet spot, yet they’re clearly a community. In the same way you’d speak of, say, the UFO community. 
Where do morels grow? “Traumatized soils,” says David West, Chef Rich’s mushroom dealer at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. Volcanic eruptions, logging and forest fires are great for morels, but let a little mild spring sunshine into a clear-cut forest and the dark soil heats up and kills the fungi. David’s are air freighted from the Klamath Falls area, collected by his team of pickers at elevations of five to six-thousand-feet, where they get frequent rainfall, cool temperatures and moist, mulchy soil. As the season progresses, circuit pickers move on to higher latitudes and other types of mushrooms, working 9-10 months a year, carrying tiered baskets on their backs and hiking off the trail 6-7 hours a day. “It’s a cash business,” says David, “a lot of money changes hands in the woods at night,” and governmental attempts to require social security numbers and checks proved unworkable. Permits are required though, and rangers can ride up on ATV’s out of nowhere to demand them. “It is odd,” admits Sporeboy, “to climb around a burned forest with ticks and snakes and the high possibility that either it is too early in the season, too late, that someone else got there first, that they simply do not grow where you are looking, or that you fall off a rock and break your legs….”
And for what? A gourmet product prized across continents, easy to identify by its thimble-shaped honeycombed cap, free but for the (not inconsiderable) price of gas, which you can sauté in butter and serve on toast, or batter and fry, or add to your Spring Vegetable Risotto, as Chef Rich does. Since they produce their own liquid, they make great sauces, like the morel cream Rich serves with his Copper River Salmon, with fiddlehead ferns, fava beans, green garlic and sautéed morels. Consult your topographical maps and rainfall charts, but let your search begin at Sage, lest the hunt, and the momentary breasting of the untamable, become its own reward.
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Market Day
Chef Rich buys armloads
of seasonal fresh flowers from
the Market every week.
Peter Shaner supplies
our spring and Maui onion.
Weiser Farms many-hued
fingerling potatoes.
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Usufruct
A grove of grapefruit trees stands adjacent to the La Quinta home of Mr. and Mrs. A—. The ten-year-old trees thrive in the desert sun, yielding three crops a year of sweetly aromatic Ruby Reds larger than softballs. “The secret is slow, deep watering once a week,” says Mr. A—, momentarily chagrined that the secret was no longer. The weighty, loosely shaped, gold and coral pink fruit hang unguarded in the still, breathless afternoons, luring the usufructary. “Friends jump the fence,” says beleaguered Mr. A—, “infusing them with vodka for their picnics.” (What doesn’t go on at the Citrus Course?) Were this an eighteenth century novel, Squire A— would thunder “Mischievous revelers!” toss a stack of letters into the fire, and let loose the dogs. But since Mr. and Mrs. A— are also Eastbluffians and dedicated friends of Sage, they brought their Ruby Reds to Chef Rich. They have just the right degree of sweetness to complement the plump, golden, seared sea scallops and sesame vinaigrette in Mrs. A—‘s favorite scallop, grapefruit and avocado salad, and their luscious crimson wedges draw stares from across the room. They also appear in the Citrus Salad at the Coast, with blood oranges and petite tangerines, butter lettuce, avocado, pine nuts and citrus vinaigrette.
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Dry Chic
Alive to the innovative and adept, Chef Rich will throw a freewheeling, four-course dinner party Tuesday evening, June 6, at Sage on the Coast featuring the fanciful drinks of Seattle’s Dry Soda Co. Created to complement fine food and extend the evening with fewer regrets, these all-natural sodas are culinarily sophisticated, bubbly and adult, cane-sweetened but not sugary. Each fluted, sparkling flavor—kumquat, rhubarb, lemongrass and lavender—calls forth its own style of cuisine and range of ingredients. With a chef as imaginative and insouciant as Rich, a lark can yield results of surpassing taste and originality. Do not miss this one. Wine and unique Dry Soda cocktails are included in the price, $45 per person, excluding tax and tip. Space is limited and reservations required. We look forward to sharing another night of fun and inspired cooking with you.
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Le Cigare Volant
Cloud-dampened coastal scrub exhales a pungent, not unpleasant aroma as the breeze sweeps up the warming slopes at Crystal Cove. Does it not remind you, mon ami, of what the Provençal call garrigue, characteristic of the grapes born of the mistral-caressed hills of the southern Rhône? The rustic mourvédre and bold syrah dominate the 2003 Le Cigare Volant now on the wine list at Sage on the Coast. Winemaker Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon began experimenting with Rhône varietals in the Santa Cruz Mountains twenty years ago. One of the original Rhône Rangers, Grahm named his Chateauneuf-du-Pape-style blend after the French idiom for flying saucer, as the alien craft were banned in 1954 from landing in the vineyards of Chateauneuf by decree of the prudent village council. Toast their circumspection with the 2003 Cigare, a great match with the Lamb Skewers with herbed oil and flatbread and a hearty antidote to June gloom. More reds uncorked at the Second Saturday wine tasting, June 10 at 2:30 on the patio, with the tractor-beamable vigneron Ian Hill.
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Let's all meet back at the house!
Bring your grad, family and friends to a Sage Party at your place.
We can also help out with Father's Day barbeques.
Sage ideas for any-sized gathering.
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