Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
A few months ago – back in the early days of summer when it seemed like the rain would never end – I found what looked like a trove of morels in my backyard.
In case you’re not familiar, a morel is a rare-ish and very prized wild mushroom with a distinctive cap that looks like a honeycomb or a sponge. When sliced through, the morel is hollow from the tip of its cap to the base of its stem. When cooked, it has a rich and earthy taste and a meaty texture.
I found these morels in the general vicinity of two elderly apple trees that we had removed earlier this year. As an aside, it pained me to see them go, as I really loved their blossoms in the spring – I loved the fruit they dropped on the lawn in the fall a little less, but the local wildlife seemed to approve. But the arborist told me they were on their last legs and threatened to collapse on the house if left to their own devices.
So, the location of these morels in my backyard tracked, because they typically are found in the spring in deciduous forests and are known in particular to like old apple orchards.
I collected them and was excited at first, but then very leery because a quick Google search warned that I needed to be ABSOLUTELY SURE about identifying these fungi correctly before eating them, as there’s an imposter called (aptly) the “false morel”, which is very poisonous and potentially deadly if consumed in high quantities.
As I don’t have a lot of foraging experience, I put photos of my morels on Facebook. The general consensus was that they were safe to eat, and quite a few of my contacts who claimed to have a lot of experience with wild mushrooms urged me not to pass up this rare opportunity. In the end, I’m ashamed to admit that I chickened out.
BEFORE YOU ASK: NO, THE MUSHROOMS IN THE PHOTO ARE NOT MORELS AND NOT – AS FAR AS I KNOW – EDIBLE.
This experience was the extent of my experience with foraging, but apparently I’m in the minority. Humans have been collecting and consuming wild foods pretty since pretty much forever, it became less and less necessary as food production became more centralized. However, in recent years, foraging has seen a resurgence in popularity.
There’s no hard data that I have been able to find that quantifies exactly how many so-called “wild food enthusiasts” are out there and what has caused the reported surge in the number of people collecting food from the great outdoors – everywhere from deep forests to urban parks.
It might have something to do with the internet and the popularity of influencers like Alexis Nicole Nelson (AKA the Black Forager), coupled with rising grocery bills, the affordability crisis, a growing interest in sustainability, and/or health and wellness trends.
Or maybe it’s something else entirely.
Whatever the reason, today is Wild Foods Day, described as “an annual celebration to encourage people to explore foraging for food found the wild.” The day appears to have started back in the 1970s, and was popularized by a man named Euell Theophilus Gibbons, who was, from what I can see, way ahead of his time.
Gibbons was a Texas-born outdoorsman and early health food advocate who was promoting the consumption of wild foods long before it was cool. His claim to fame was actually NOT foraging, but rather appearing in TV ads for Grape Nuts cereal. He was best known for asking viewers: “Ever eat a pine tree?” (Just click the link and watch the TV and this seeming non-sequitur will make sense).
Gibbons was a minor celebrity in his time. Of all that he did, I have to admit to being a little jealous about the six-day canoe and hiking trip he took in the 1960s with the writer John McPhee, during which the two men subsisted largely on foods that Gibbons forged for them. After 16 meals in the Pennsylvania wilderness, they not only survived, but thrived.
It will be mostly sunny today with a few passing clouds – perfect for getting out there and foraging for fall staples like black walnuts, rose hips, acorns, and hen of the woods mushrooms. Temperatures will top out in the mid-50s, so be sure to bring a sweater.
In the headlines…
Hurricane Melissa is on track to make a direct hit on Jamaica today, as the nation’s prime minister warned that no country in the Caribbean could withstand a storm so powerful – expected to be the strongest to hit the Caribbean island in modern history.
The Category 5 storm — the strongest in the Atlantic Ocean this year — is threatening catastrophic damage with 175 m.p.h. winds and enough moisture to drop nearly three feet of rain.
Melissa is also forecast to strike parts of Cuba and the Bahamas later this week. The U.S. is not expected to be affected.
The impacts of the storm that forecasters described as “catastrophic” were already being felt in Jamaica and three storm-related deaths were reported, the Jamaican Ministry of Health and Wellness said on X last night.
Officials in Jamaica have raised concerns that not enough residents in low-lying areas are complying with mandatory evacuation orders as the island nation braces for a direct hit from Hurricane Melissa.
President Donald Trump and Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese prime minister, traded compliments during Trump’s stop in Tokyo, but signaled no major breakthrough in ongoing trade negotiations.
A president who has chafed at the limits on his power sees political benefit in talking about remaining in office, and so continues to muse publicly about seeking a third term.
The largest union of federal workers called for Congress to pass a spending bill to immediately end the government shutdown, effectively siding with President Trump and Republicans who have opposed Democratic efforts to restore health care spending.
“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”
House Republicans are calling on the Justice Department to launch an investigation into the Biden administration’s use of an autopen, an effort they hope will unwind various actions taken by former President Biden.
Dozens of Joe Biden’s executive actions “cannot all be deemed his own” after his closest advisers “went to great lengths to prop up” the 46th president as he suffered physical and cognitive decline in office, according to a House GOP report released yesterday.
Bill Gates, who has spent billions of his own money to raise the alarm about the dangers of climate change, is now pushing back against what he calls a “doomsday outlook” and appears to have shifted his stance on the risks posed by a warming planet.
In a lengthy memo released yesterday, Gates sought to tamp down the alarmism he said many people use to describe the effects of rising temperatures. Instead, he called for redirecting efforts toward improving lives in the developing world.
The anchor John Dickerson said yesterday that he would depart CBS News at the end of the year, the first sign of what is expected to be a major shake-up at the network under its new corporate owners.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will provide $30 million in additional emergency food aid to prevent hunger for millions of New Yorkers facing a cutoff of federal food assistance this weekend as the federal government shutdown drags on.
Late last month, Hochul signed legislation allowing farmers markets to operate in New York’s state parks. Sponsored by state Sen. Jose Serrano and co-sponsored by Sen. Michelle Hinchey, the law is designed to link public land with public health.
Meeting with senior citizens and officials at an East Harlem community health center, Hochul vowed the state would fill some of the gap left by the feds’ failure to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beyond Nov. 1.
It was meant to be a friendly appearance: a chance for Hochul to speak to a stadium filled with progressive-minded New Yorkers who had come out to rally for Mamdani in the final days of his mayoral campaign. It did not go particularly well.
Hochul said that she thought a “tax the rich” chant at the Sunday rally for Mamdani was “Let’s go Bills” instead, referencing the NFL team the Buffalo Bills.
“I wasn’t sure… I heard some noise, I heard a lot of cheers. But later on it became clear to me, I know there is a passion for that,” Hochul added.
Hochul hasn’t taken a position on legislation meant to expand immigrant protections, but she told reporters she has “been tabletopping exercises” with state officials to figure out how to protect undocumented New Yorkers from ICE.
Hochul stopped by popular Astoria sports bar Murphy’s Sunday afternoon to sample the bar’s buffalo wings and catch part of the Buffalo Bills’ convincing win over the Carolina Panthers.
Mamdani voiced confidence that he would, if elected, be able to enact a rent freeze for New York City’s stabilized tenants next year, even if Mayor Adams pulls off a last-minute maneuver that could complicate the move.
New York City Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, a longtime political ally to Adams, endorsed Mamdani in the race for City Hall on Sunday.
Top Republicans seized on House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ endorsement of Mamdani for mayor of New York, casting the self-described democratic socialist as the new face of the Democratic Party ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Mamdani stopped by The Daily Show to speak with Jon Stewart about running for New York City mayor and the state of the Democratic party. With only eight days left for the election, Stewart asked Mamdani what he needed to do to “close the deal.”
The “aunt” who Mamdani said was too afraid to wear her hijab on the subways after 9/11 is his dad’s cousin, he revealed after critics seized on his story, sharing photos on social media of a woman they identified as his aunt, who was pictured without a hijab.
Political newcomer Mamdani is firing up Boomers, and it could be a bad sign for his bid to become New York City’s next mayor. Voters 50 and up accounted for nearly 60% of ballots cast during the first two days of early voting in the city’s mayoral election.
Voters ages 55 and older made up just over 50% of the early voting turnout, marking a dramatic shift from the Democratic primary when younger voters, ages 25 to 34, dominated turnout during early voting, according to an analysis of voter data.
The city’s longest-serving NYPD commissioner, Ray Kelly, endorsed Andrew Cuomo for mayor, but the Big Apple’s major police unions are sitting out the race.
Mamdani and the teachers’ union have called for changes in mayoral control. Cuomo and some education leaders say that would be a grave mistake.
Early voting has already begun, and mayoral candidate Mamdani has been evasive about where he stands on a series of questions on the ballot.
In the latest Suffolk University poll, conducted over the past four days, Mamdani leads Cuomo by 10 points — 44 percent to 34 percent —, down from 20 points, with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa following with 11 percent.
“There is one person in New York City whose voters could have an outsized impact on the outcome,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, referencing Sliwa.
Sliwa said he will not drop out of New York City’s mayoral race despite trailing in polls and facing pressure to withdraw, insisting voters should decide the election rather than “billionaires, influences and insiders.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t mince words when trying to link Mamdani’s Democratic socialist policies to the shutdown, saying: “You can endorse communists all you want, but at least keep the government operating for us.”
North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik has revealed she’s publishing a book exposing the “far-left indoctrination, division, and moral rot” at Ivy League universities, as she draws a direct line from elite campus culture to the rise of Mamdani.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of four New Yorkers charges that the state’s congressional map unconstitutionally dilutes Black and Latino votes in a district that covers Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, marking the state’s official entrance into the gerrymandering fight.
Uber and Lyft drivers who appeal deactivations by the rideshare giants rarely get reinstated, according to a report issued by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The NYPD unveiled a new $5.8 million Special Victims Unit facility in the Bronx, designed to boost investigations into sexual assault cases and offer more support to survivors of such crimes.
The NYPD honored dozens of New York’s Finest for racing into action during the deadly mass shooting at a Midtown office building that left a cop and three others dead.
Transit officials in New York City yesterday said that the completion of new rail stations in the Bronx could be delayed by three years until 2030, and they blamed Amtrak, their partner in the project, for slowing progress.
A defunct theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side will be renamed the Uptown Film Center and may open to moviegoers by early 2028, the nonprofit that bought it said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office had reached a settlement with a Montgomery County landlord over alleged discrimination against prospective tenants who rely on public housing assistance.
A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit roundly rejected former NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s request to have three lower court rulings overturned.
North Greenbush highway superintendent candidate Jason L. Hamlin was convicted of rape more than two decades ago and served five years in prison. He is classified as a Level 1 sex offender, and hasn’t publicly disclosed the details of his criminal record,
Schenectady school board member Jamaica Miles and other parents expressed outrage over the suspension of 14 high schoolers, claiming the incident is part of a pattern of harsh disciplinary measures being disproportionately levied against students of color.
A woman allegedly threatened to shoot a Schenectady County legislator over his support of President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon while the local lawmaker was canvassing for reelection with his two sons in Rotterdam.
Trader Joe’s announced its new Glenmont Plaza store will open today. A brief ribbon cutting is scheduled moments before the doors open at 9 a.m. Store captain Jenn Nemec and Trader Joe’s crew members will welcome customers to the neighborhood store.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
