Rachel Kadel

Joined a local mushroom club recently. The chicken-of-the-woods mushroom (Laetiporus sulphureus; some other similar Laetiporus species share the common name and culinary properties) is in season, and one of the club members offered up a beautiful specimen, something like three pounds of young tender shelves. She finds them often, but is allergic, so passes on the bounty.

I made three things with it:

Tuesday night I cut it up and sorted it into biggish tender pieces, smallish tender pieces, and woody bits. I breaded and fried a bunch of the biggish tender pieces according to this recipe: https://foragerchef.com/chicken-fried-chicken-of-the-woods/ and ate them with a white wine/butter/green-peppercorn pan sauce. (I meant it to be chicken piccata of the woods, but mistook green peppercorns for capers). Very tasty if I do say so myself, I think I'll reprise it tonight with the rest of the biggish pieces, esp. if I can coordinate with the housemates to feed it to them too. The breading helps to hold the moisture in to effectively steam the inside of the mushroom. Chicken of the woods, like almost all mushrooms, needs to be thoroughly cooked, and a dry sauté can wind up tough.

I roasted the woody bits in the oven with shallots and carrots, then simmered them and some herbs and bits of coral mushrooms in salted water for a couple hours to make stock https://foragerchef.com/roasted-chicken-or-hen-of-the-woods-stock/ It came out lovely and flavorful.

And I pickled the small tender pieces in an unsweetened, relatively mild vinegar brine -- tried a couple pieces, I'm pleased with the texture and the brine flavor is mild enough they could be incorporated into a dish later somewhat similarly to fresh mushrooms. Refrigerating them, didn't can them, but they'll last a lot longer this way than the fresh mushrooms would.
https://foragerchef.com/pickled-baby-chicken-of-the-woods/

[same thing posted on facebook]

You were best cat with warmest ears.

She'd had chronic kidney failure since 2020, managed with diet and regular subcutaneous fluids. Up until very recently she was a strong, adventurous cat. She took a very sharp turn for the worse starting Thursday. I was concerned about her weight loss/appetite and her trying to jump up on some things and missing. Friday with some medication change she was eating better but too weak for stairs. Saturday she was staying in one lavishly-cushioned spot except for trips to the litterbox. Sunday she was barely able to stand; I spent most of the day at an emergency vet office, which confirmed that what was going on was end-stage chronic kidney disease and that she was probably in her last few days, and gave some prescriptions and advice for palliative care. I went to Dave's funeral and am glad I did; took off back home as soon as I'd hugged Paolo, because Cheese needed me.

Monday morning she couldn't even hold her head up. I switched my picture of the day from "find a way to have someone tend Cheese hand and foot while we get Sam and his stuff home from college" to "get Sam home so he can be with Cheese for the end". Sam navigated the hurdles of departing during finals and finding places to stash his stuff, I found him a taxi home (farther than I'd ordinarily taxi, but in this kind of emergency it makes sense). His partner Ethan got here too, and the three of us spent some tender time together physically supporting and petting Cheese, moving her the ways she showed us she wanted to move. She had some lickable treats and some water during that, and was glad to have her best person snuggling her. Dr. C. of Animals First came to us and euthanized her while Sam held her; she did a great job of letting us continue supporting and comforting Cheese, causing her as little other-than-death disruption as possible.

Death is the worst. Yesterday was really hard for all of us. I'll do a tribute-to-Cheese type post later.

Picture, from late January: my cat Cheese looking very comfy in the center of a dog bed that would fit about a dozen cats her size.

Saturday night I performed on aerial sling at the Esh Circus Arts student show (video credit Beren Jones): https://youtu.be/Ws4LGjgcffY?t=46

And it was inutterably amazing.