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Here’s a wheat paste recipe:

Prepare 1 cup (2.4 dl) of very hot water. Make a thin mixture of 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of white flour and cold water (just enough to wet all the flour and make it liquid enough to pour). Pour the cold mixture slowly into the hot water while stirring constantly. Bring to a boil. When it thickens, allow to cool. Smear on like any other glue. For slightly better strength, add 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of sugar after the glue is thickened. After using a portion, reheat the remaining in a covered jar or container to sterilize it for storage or keep refrigerated. If wheat flour is not available, other flours will work.

Here is a link to the original image:

http://ia331432.us.archive.org/1/items/USAisMeat/USAmeat.jpg

There’s always fun to be had with wheat paste…

And The original recipe was found here: http://solarcooking.org/wheatpaste.htm

Right now it’s slow in my mushroom world and not much fruit. We’ve had none to very little rainfall this winter and the few mushrooms I’m familiar with are not doing well.  I was able to harvest some oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) on my last hunt which we’ll get to later.

My new favorite edible is the Candy Cap (Lactarius fragilis).

Candy Cap Mushroom

Here is some video footage of a really tiny one I keep on my heater.

When candy cap mushrooms are dried they smell like maple syrup and it is told that one mushroom can fill a whole house with it’s aroma. I’ve hung several and a small cheesecloth satchel full hangs in our living room. They are awesome in pancakes but my favorite recipe so far is candy cap mushroom, poppy seed muffins.

Specialty mushrooms are spendy when you can get them and I’m lucky to be blessed with a number of options, which I rarely use anymore. During late spring through fall at the Arcata farmers market, a local cultivator sells oyster, Shitake (Lentinus edodes), Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus), and in the fall Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius), and Hedgehog (Hydnum repandum). These can be found dried in many stores and the Arcata Co-op usually carries fresh Oregon imported oyster and shitake.

I prefer to hunt my own. I like to compare it to Easter egg hunting as a kid. It’s really exciting to find a patch of edibles. Near my house I find king boletus (Boletus edulis), hedehogs, chanterelles, pigs ears (Gomphus clavatus), candy caps, saffron milk cap (Lactarious deliciousus), and a cool fungus called witches butter (Tremella mesenterica) that my friend calls forest floor flavored gummy bears.

This is where I hunt

I find most of the edible mushrooms from late October through January (so far) but year round I find oyster mushrooms. Here I’m picking oysters mushrooms during the last weekend of January 2009.

I obtained information and images from these websites which you can link to for more information:
http://mushroomobserver.org/
http://www.mykoweb.com/index.html
http://www.mushroomthejournal.com/index.html