Foodlore Library

A few weeks ago, I joined a group of fungi fanatics at the Yachats Mushroom Festival in Yachats, Oregon. Read on to hear about my adventures.

What does food activist and gardener Roger Doiron want you to do with your yard? Eat it! He’s one of a handful of activists who organized a grassroots (or as he calls it, “carrot-roots”) movement to get us to look at the green space in our yards through different lenses.

It felt like winter. The sky was a mottled grey, the wind sharp, and snow kept spitting down on us. But our minds would have none of that; we were squarely focused, full steam ahead, on spring, because the sap was running and it was Maine Maple Sunday, a sure sign of spring in New England–even more sure than the arrival of red-winged blackbirds and crocuses.

The cozy sugar shack: a roomful of Maine's sweet sap

During the hottest and driest August the South had seen in years, I moved my small family from Brigham City, Utah to Sheffield, Alabama. Although our realtor commented on the dryness, we were shocked by the denseness of the heat. The heat pulled the moisture from our bodies, and the humidity kept that moisture clinging to our bodies. We were told this was the arms of the South wrapping around us in welcome.