Some of what I picked yesterday

@samueltyler2 Thank you for the caution. AI verified for me that they were edible. I'm just kidding. I remember hearing about some people picking mushrooms and using them in a recipe they got from AI, and they all got sick. (That doesn't make sense though. Maybe the recipe was just fine and they picked the wrong mushrooms? I don't know.) I've been picking mushrooms for 17 years and my husband has picked much longer than that. The first two years we were together we would pick and sell to a local buyer. We also pick chicken of the woods, coral, lobsters, and white chanterelles. He's picked morels, but I never have. One year we scored big on black truffles. I would love to find those again.

@morrgin I have treated many people who felt they knew what they were doing when picking mushrooms but made a mistake, some unfortunately died.

There is this that we to oncologist frequently say:

There are old mushroom pickers
There are bold mushroom pickers
There are no old, bold mushroom pickers.

I once was at a restaurant that feature gyromitra mushrooms on the menu. I discreetly spoke to the maitre de about the toxicity such mushrooms possess. I was told that the chef had been serving them for a long time and never had a problem. I sent the owner some references. He answered that although he knew how to cook them and therefore never had a problem, but he was no longer going to serve them.

@samueltyler2 One thing I will never do again is buy those mushroom gummies. It was the worst experience. There was nothing happy or relaxing about it. I wanted to go to the hospital but for some reason couldn't bring myself to speak. It was like a supercharged awareness of everything wrong in my life and in the world going at warp speed through my head while my heart rate was through the roof. Never again.

@samueltyler2 That would be embarrassing. It reminds me of a fire fighter I knew who burned cupcakes in the oven. There was a lot of smoke so he called the station to have them bring those things that remove smoke from the air. They brought them and had their lights and sirens on all the way up to his house.

@morrgin i once stopped to help the police with an accident on the turnpike. the man had a neck injury and i ended up holding his head to stabilize his neck, as we went to an ER. on arrival the ER doctor saw me and asked what I was doing in hos ER, i said oh, nothing just having a little fun!