Making Tracks

By Kat Bryant

Hello! My name is Kat, and I loathe mushrooms.

I know that’s not a popular stance – especially here in the Pacific Northwest, where they’re kind of a big deal. Sure, they can be beautiful; I’ve taken plenty of photos of various types on my walks in the woods. But as a food, fungus ranks right up there with liver and tofu on my gag scale. Blech.

People ask me whether it’s a taste thing or a texture thing, and I have to say both. There’s nothing you can do to a mushroom to make my eyes roll into the back of my head in ecstasy, or prompt me to say “Please, sir, I want some more!” Many have tried. All have failed.

Given all this, it would seem paradoxical for me to drive to Lake Quinault to check out the 15th annual Mushroom Festival. And yet I fully intended to do so this past weekend — mostly because I love that area, and there were some people I wanted to meet. Plus, the field trips sounded like fun, and I thought I might learn a few things. (Still, I politely declined an invitation to attend the dinner. I couldn’t exactly ask the chef to “hold” the featured ingredient from every dish, now, could I?)

I was actually excited about it when I went to bed Friday night. I dutifully set my alarm for zero-dark-thirty the next morning so I could get to the Lake Quinault Lodge in time for the one-hour briefing on mushroom identification before the field trips began.

But it was not to be.

Maybe Nature rebelled against my plans. Maybe my brain went haywire at the thought of it all. Maybe it was both. But when my alarm went off Saturday morning, I had a screaming migraine — my first in many months — and rain was coming down in torrents.

I got up long enough to take a dose of sumatriptan and use the restroom. My dog, Rose, seemed just as unwilling as I was to step outside, but I persuaded her to get her morning business done; and then we both went back to bed. I burrowed under the covers and willed the rain and the pain to go away.

I woke up again at 2:30 that afternoon, pain-free but mentally fuzzy — and the deluge continued outside. It was definitely a cocoa-and-DVD kind of day, and I made the most of it before crashing again just a few hours later. (Migraines are exhausting.)

So, my apologies to the folks at Lake Quinault Lodge. I’ll try again next year — barring any more natural disasters.

Kat Bryant is lifestyle editor of The Daily World. And no, thanks, she really doesn’t want to try your awesome mushroom recipe. Reach her at kbryant@thedailyworld.com or on Facebook at Kat Bryant-DailyWorld.