We win!

Mushroom-hunting in the New York State forests, we came upon something so magical it hurt.  One never-ending patch of glorious Chanterelle mushrooms.  Collecting them, we were almost left in total darkness as the sun set.  Of course we saw an amazing array of other, non-edible mushrooms (like the huge grove of Russula laurocerasi, which smell like almond macaroons), but this was something we could eat and share with friends!  It total, the hundreds of mushrooms weighed in at around 8 or 9 pounds.  Here’s what they looked like after we ate off a little bit:

Second Glimpse of Russia

Here’s a second set of photos from my three weeks in Russia among family and friends. This time, the source comes from both Moscow and Orenburg, a city of some 600,000 that sits on the Ural river in southern Russia.

Cars (and garages to house them) are multiplying at a terrifying rate. Moscow, and Orenburg to a lesser degree have been overrun by “inomarki,” or foreign cars, making Russian made autos scarce. Traffic sucks.