hi judy, well, lucky you. i have never tasted matsutakes either. i really would like to one day. also chicken of the woods and huitlacoche. i tend to eat a lot of those chinese black mushrooms, which i think are related if not the same as shiitake. also my mom has been cooking a lot with something called bamboo mushrooms, which are spongy and crunchy at the same time. we eat the white, porous caps. in NYC, you can often find not only enoki, but also straw and oyster (abalone) mushrooms canned. tsuh yang --- Judy Glattstein <jglatt@ptd.net> wrote: > One September I was a student attending an intensive > seminar on Japanese > garden art in Kyoto. Dinner was not included in our > tuition, so I ate lots > of udon in broth with perhaps one tempura shrimp and > several tempura green > beans as garnish. I remember going through the > markets in awe at the > beautiful, extremely expensive produce - the first > chestnuts, presented in > their husks, and wonderful matsutake mushrooms, much > too expensive for a > student to buy. > > Here on Creek Road we found a "mother load" of black > chanterelles last > Wednesday. Dinner at my neighbors was pasta with an > Alfredo sauce and three > kinds of chanterelles (golden, black, and tiny red > ones) and oyster > mushrooms. Not quite up to five, but all wild > gathered. Let the rains > continue! _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush/