Cogito ergo rabidus.

I was setting up shop last Saturday to deal with the first real fruits of my ceaseless labor, and while sorting through the endless piles of cucumbers that have harvested, decided to pull out a jar of last year’s pickles to mitigate my guilt. The jar was labeled “10-10-10,” with a subtitle of “finally, the last of this year’s pickles.” But it was not the last jar of last year’s pickles. My friends, I will die drowning in a cucumbering waterbath, or suffer slowly from vinegar exposure.

Because I nearly had to check myself into a treatment center last year from all the cucumbers, I made a very big deal of putting down only 10 plants this year, and yet I’m rolling in them already, giving them away to neighbors receiving them with the enthusiasm of crack-covered candy, while feasting on endless cucumber-and-dill salads.

That said, my first day of real food preparation resulted in:

8 pints of kosher dills
5 pints of blueberry jam
2 pints of salsa verde
freshly blanched and frozen zucchini, snow peas, snap peas, beans, various hopefully freezable greens, and additional blueberries, for the purpose of pies and pancakes.

And while all this was not met without some vague feeling of Accomplishment, at the same time, I wondered if this was time I mightn’t have better spent on great intellectual and artistic pursuits. Or at least write my memoirs on the nearest treestump. I mean, I have all kinds of food made by my hand, but I’m nobody’s grandmother; what am I doing making so much jam, anyway? Has anyone, ever, in the documented history of the universe, single-handedly made his or her way through five jars of blueberry fucking jam? There are days like this, where I awaken to the realization that I’m living like a crazy person.

This ego-driven existential crisis continued for about a week, right up to the day my local barman served my weekly dose of whiskey and said: I found a cherry tree full of Chicken of the Woods, and thought of you. You should go get some.

I had never heard of such a thing, but my friends, it is a mushroom unlike any other. I’m generally as auto-didactic as it comes, especially with this rural survival beat, but when it comes to mycology, I’ve long been hoping for an old wise native to give me a tour. I love mushrooms more than most people, but for every delicious one that grows in the wild, there’s a twin waiting to turn into an axe murderer if you deign to sniff it in the wrong spot. So I’ve demurred, big pussy that I am.

Let me tell you a thing about Chicken of the Woods: it’s rabidly good. Another thing: it’s easy to identify, and unless you’re a total boob, your chances of happening upon its toxic twin are slim. They live on dying, but standing, hardwoods. They resemble oyster mushrooms, but an orange or honey color. The Evil Twin is on conifers. Get them while they’re fresh. They’re great sautéed with oregano, onion, garlic, and capers and thrown into a red sauce over pasta, in which form they’re vacuumed mouthward even by the perpetually dismissive piss-and-moaning seven-year-old part-time resident of Cooter Hollow. They’re almost as good gently roasted with lime, chili pepper and celery salt and cooked into quesadillas. I’m sure they’re equally good in ways I’ll be discovering for years, in fact.

And with that, suddenly I bounced right back from my (admittedly) uglily hubristic country-living chagrin and became again in thrall by what we’re up to. After all, anyone’s grandmother can make endless jars of jam, but when the zombie apocalypse comes, I’ll be fending them off with spears of pickles in the eyesockets, and eating like royalty from the trees.