Mushroom hunting in Istria, Part II: A meager success story, a happy success story

I awoke again, as I did during my last outing with Luka and my cousin, early in the morning. As I had done, I donned a windbreaker, over a hoodie, over an undershirt, olive-green skinny pants, and a pair of Timberland chukkas, the latter which served me well during the last trek.

Here, I learned that Timberlands will not cut it. Only galoshes of the toughest variety will suffice. Because, if you venture into deep wood during rainy season, those Timberland soles might provide you with a great, stable base to combat an uneven forest floor, but they will not prevent you from being drenched to the marrow. Inevitably, you will look like this:

And it's gonna take one heavy-duty beach towel to dry that mess off. Oh, and nothing else you wear will keep you from soaking in the godforsaken Croatian forest. The drenched trees will drench your windbreaker, which will drench your "waterproof" hoodie, and the drenched branches will yank your hoods off your hair only to drench it and your headscarf in under five seconds. You wanna find mushrooms at the right time? Pay the price. Maybe it's pneumonia, but most likely it's just the discomfort of being dropped into a dunk tank -- clothed in San Francisco-esque layers -- at the State Fair.

But it's so, so worth it.

Again, Luka drove us to another one of my cousin's spots. My cousin provided the same vague, zig-zagging direction, guiding me with her walking stick. Throughout our journey, she would urge me to keep my eyes open. "Natalie, you must LOOK. They are bright orange, so easy to find, but they are under leaves, trees. Just LOOK. LOOK."

And so we found. These beauties:

Chantrelles on the forest floor of Tinjan, Croatia. What to look  for when you search for Chantrelles. CAREFUL: There's a mushroom that's the exact same color, with the subtle difference that it possesses a "cap." Those are not good for eat.

"PICK THEM! GO!" My cousin urged me excitedly. I shared the excitement, but reacted by stopping dead in my tracks. When you finally get there, even if it is for this meager a score, you'll feel only like you've completed a job well-done.

Except you want more. Sort of like a monster of an addictive drug, without the gnarly come down. I do, however, experience foraging withdrawals.

And so we went out again, when my cousin was to stumble upon this, the "red egg."

Cue the chorus of angels.

Apparently, this is a mushroom so special, so delicate and prized that Italians eat it thinly-sliced, as a sort of carpaccio. My aunt, intrigued by her daughter's discovery, wanted to know where she'd found the king of kings in the Croatian forest. Surely, there would be more later, in that very spot. I didn't get the chance to follow up to see if that was the case.

Our haul of Chantrelles was actually quite meager. "Sometimes, I've brought back ten kilos. A whole trunk-full," my aunt reminisced about the times when she was healthy enough to make a trek into the woods. "The whole car?! It would smell like peaches." Sounds strange, but it's actually spot-on. I have encountered no farmed mushroom that approaches the aroma of those bright orange Croatian stunners, straight from the forest floor.

Teeny haul, but still a happy haul.

Don't get it twisted: ninjas have to be delicate with their catch.

On this trek, again, we came across more foragers who revealed their preferences and methods. I was stoked to find a patch of black trumpets, only to have my cousin and another older lady poo-poo them. "Ne me volim," said the tired forager with that ever-so-slight tinge of disapproval so suited to the Croatian language (that, I understood. "I don't like." Well, they're pretty. And tasty. And trendy in San Francisco, so there). We used that "lesser" mushroom as a sort of pepper in the preparation for our other fungi. My aunt and cousin simply cooked them all in cream, with beef and noodles. The uniqueness of each type of mushroom still stood out among so much rich food.

Oh, and hey, SF Instagramers: it would have been unbelievably rude to take pictures of such a simple, exquisite meal in my Croatian aunt's modest Croatian house, not to mention incredibly perplexing for her. Just create your own visual of that meal. In your minds. I've given you enough inspiration.

Foraging, Mycology. It's fascinating, nuanced, fulfilling, especially when you end up with fantastic meals at the end of it. And to have taken part in mushroom-hunting expeditions in a region where this is standard practice, revered not just by the culinary elite, was a privilege of the highest sort for a little ol' cook.

I'll pursue this in California. But without family, without that widespread enthusiasm of non-foodie, unpretentious Croats for the best of the best food the forest has to offer, I doubt my experiences will be the same. But maybe I'm just romanticizing an ideal. Perhaps seeing what the woods have to offer, no matter where I am, will be just another exciting journey.

Mushroom hunting for the first time -- in friggin' Istria! Part I

It's 7 am on a dreary morning in the little village of Rudichi. I'm up. I haven't showered. I won't need to, because I'll be trudging off of forest paths and into the abyss of trees.

And I will have enjoyed every minute of it.

I meet my 55-year-old cousin in front of my great aunt's house, five minutes after I've hopped out of bed. She hands me a wicker basket and my walking stick. She asks me if my dad went into town, for her pack of Ronhill cigarettes and chocolate. These provisions won't merely sustain her, for all of that nicotine, sugar and caffeine act as jet fuel for my cousin. She can launch into the wood deftly, like a chain-smoking, chocolate-chewing Istrian ninja in a baby blue windbreaker. An excited, Istrian, windbreaker-cloaked ninja, on the hunt for the fungal darlings of the Bay Area food scene -- Chantrelles and Porcinis.

The kindly man who helps my aunt with household chores (let's call him Luka), drives us to one of my cousin's "spots." He leaves us to slosh through the wood. Oh, and the wood? It looks a little like Blair Witch, and it's impossible not to get your ponytail stuck in a branch, or on a leaf, or, if you're as graceful as I am, on the very ground littered with twigs and the occasional jagged rock. I was bending down to pick up my walking stick, and next thing I knew, I was glued to the forest floor. My cousin had the height advantage of being about five inches shorter than me -- truly a plus when you're weaving your way through fallen branches, brambles, molehills, or maybe around a hornets' nest (maybe).

If you forage for mushrooms in Tinjan, Croatia, the "path" ahead of you might look like this.

"Okay, now, you go this way, and I go that way." My cousin makes vague zig-zagging gestures with her walking stick while explaining this to me. It would have confused any non-Croat, but I got it. And we seemed to do okay -- we found some purple-capped mushrooms my aunt loves, and other mushrooms that were pretty but, as my cousin explained, "not good for eat."

Mushrooms like these are wonderful to come across on the Croatian forest floor. Just stunning little toadstools. But definitely "not good for eat," because you will die if you do.

Coral mushrooms. Look, don't eat.

I lose my cousin about a dozen times. If she can't hear me scream her name, or the occasional "GDJE SI TI?!" (Where are you?! [I'm admittedly ashamed of my accent, so I avoid the phrase as much as possible]), I look for the faint smoke signals of her Ronhills, which might lead me to her zig-zagging path.

Having found very little that morning, we make our way back to our chauffeur. I have no idea how my cousin foraged without a mobile phone, her sense of direction being so poor, but Luka seemed to know those forests like the back of his hand. Note to self, I thought: invest in compass when pursuing this hobby seriously back in the Bay. Sprint won't cut it on the Sonoma Coast.

"Okay. So from where you are, you should head northwest. So that the sun is on your left shoulder," he told her. Details like that revealed how keen a forager has to be -- where the sun comes up, when, during what times of the year, where exactly those mushrooms grow, etc. In fact, each mushroom hunter extraordinaire I came across seemed to have their "spot" they were reticent about, their closely-guarded knowledge of why Chantrelles grew where, why Porcinis in another spot. In one outing, with my aunt, we pulled over at the side of the highway, climbing over garbage to search for Chantrelles in a hidden clearing. "Eh?" was my only verbal reaction when the car stopped (and we found nothing).

* * * * *

We did find little that September morning; my cousin went back out with the farm dog later that afternoon, only to find yet more of very little. Instead of accompanying her, I slept, exhausted from the five hours of stomping, tangling and searching.

We resolved to go again, not to be daunted by the crapshoot that is foraging. It would rain in the next few weeks, so there would be Chantrelles, and Porcinis, and other lovely little morsels, and we'd go again, damnit.

That's what coursed through my veins in my afternoon nap, as I dreamed of venturing back into the woody abyss once more.

Istria, to whet your appetite

That's where I was for most of September last year. It's the northernmost part of the Croatian coast, and it looks like this:

So. Yeah. That? Oh, that's Draguch, some dinky little hilltown. There's a small chapel with a fresco in there. Not really worth it (Worth it. The road past Draguch makes the Sierras look like a toxic waste dump).

The streets of such towns look like this:

Motovun, Istria, Croatia.

And everything is really pleasant. For the most part. When the curator of a local museum hisses at you, hoping you don't "learn too much" about Istria, then maybe that suspicious Slavic character rears its ugly head, the mark of a people under someone else's thumb(s) for too long. But let's not wash history in brushstrokes too broad. This is a lovely region, known for truffles and mushrooms that look like this:

Chantrelles foraged in the forests surround Tinjan, Istria, Croatia.

But yes, Istrians have been under everyone's thumbs. And by "everyone" I mean the Venetians, the French, the Italians, the Austro-Hungarians... So mushrooms like this might make an amazing sauce for your gnocchi, which you will follow up with strudel and Turkish coffee.

It's a cook's dream. A place where many people have their own gardens and produce the best that nature has to offer; where you'll trip over foragers combing the woods around small towns; where you'll trip over truffles; where you'll find some of the best seafood in the Adriatic, because, apparently, the currents wash all of Croatia's garbage to Italy.

I'll get to all of these nuances in separate entries. I just wanted to show my audience what's it's like, generally. And only generally.

Let's recap the last year in a few sentences

I started at a new restaurant in January of last year, as a paid, PAID, line cook. I worked my way through a monster pantry station, then made "pizzer," (that's "pizza" to those of you who aren't silly), then made my way to our fancy sister restaurant, where I can work two other stations with relative ease.

What a year. I'm tired. But also so, so happy that I've found myself crying tears of joy in inappropriate places, like on a 2 am bus ride home after a nine-day stretch of work. This trade saved me, dammit, I'm allowed a little emotionally-inappropriate leeway.

I thoroughly explored Istria last autumn, a region of Croatia that will only leave you with a dropped jaw or two. I foraged for Chantrelles and Porcinis and ate a ton of food, which ranged from "FUCKING HELL!" to "Let's never do that again, kay?" I can't even... I'll get to Istrian food in a more than a few entries.

Let's address all of this  in the next few weeks. I'll get my notes on Croatia together, my musings about line-cooking, and share the idiotic things my lovely co-workers have to share with the rest of the world.

God I love my little life. This is it, and it is wonderful.

Catching up, if you can call it that

It was a bad day. I forgot my keys at work after a long walk, after which I drove home and found I had forgotten my keys, and couldn't get home. So I went back to the restaurant, where I had to be in six hours anyway.

That meant four hours of sleep. And I felt it the next day.

The trouble is... being tired is just not an excuse for doing your job poorly. There are no excuses for doing your job poorly, really, and not getting your ass to sleep because you forgot your keys belongs in that non-category.

It is problematic, especially when you're new at your demanding job. When I was writing papers all day, I could run on two hours of sleep, or no sleep at all. Yeah... read 100 pages of Descartes, finish that Lessing translation and sure, I'll be at my aerobics class at 8am and definitely stay awake for the next 12 hours on a few hours of naptime. It'll be great (it never is).

Why that energy doesn't translate to the kitchen: because I've spent thousands upon thousands of hours speaking and reading German, and even more writing critical papers. I have not spent that many hours on a line.

Those moments, when I'm a zombie? It's then that I wished I had started cooking sooner.

Tradeoffs: I wouldn't be zooming through fantastic, mind-expanding German literature if I hadn't taken it so seriously. Or refrain from correcting my sous on his non-existent German. Or have been able to pick up Spanish fairly quickly, because I already kicked another language's ass. For all that, I have to work harder to become a better cook.

"Those 20-year-olds on the line all have a head-start on you," said one of the city's greatest chefs to me. I wanted to say, "Yeah, and I don't give a fuck," but decorum got the better of me.

So I just harnessed that and kept it to myself.

This is a trade. You don't need to have God-given talent to be a great cook -- you just have to cook. Preferably, your ass off. I'll be freaking fantastic, and I'll be right there with you, you 20-year-olds.

I guess I have to read Malcolm Gladwell, huh?

Keep the San Francisco Baking Institute open

Cooks don't make a lot of money. Bakers don't either. And even if you climb the ranks, for the amount of hours you'll put in as a Chef, you are SOL.

Why, then, invest at all in the hospitality industry? Because this will be an industry that always provides challenging employment. Judy Rodgers, of Zuni fame, told one author recently, "...there are so many restaurants right now that are serious and trying hard... If you're hardworking and talented, you're never going to have trouble finding a job."*

Not to mention, our delicious food gives those with a bit of disposable income an excuse to spend it. That money will most likely stay in the city, too.

Easy employment and local, entrepreneurial spirit. That puts wheels on this economy, right? Hell yeah.

The San Francisco Baking Institute has encountered some red tape in renewing its business license. The state has ordered them to stop the private, post-secondary education they specialize in, effective immediately.

I know from watching my peers that the SFBI has trained incredibly talented industry professionals. Based on this, they have built a reputation so outstanding that they've attracted talent from outside of the US. The SFBI is an integral part of our culinary landscape in the Bay Area.

So please, sign this petition to keep the SFBI open. 

We're not the best paid workers, but hospitality people are incredibly productive. And if we step in through community college, or an ad on Craigslist, we've invested a relatively small amount of money to begin building a wealth of talent. And places like the SFBI -- who actually pay their interns, by the by -- are a part of this success. So support them! 

*Quoted from Skirt Steak: Women chefs on standing the heat and staying in the kitchen. By Charlotte Druckman. 

Show your love

I deleted the last entry, wherein I cried about a bad gig. I read it a second time, lucid and awake, made a face and produced some sort of interesting noise of disapproval. Then sent it into cyberspace to rot.

Today, I received some very interesting feedback from my now former Chef (Yes, my internship is done! More on this later.). All marks were high, but there was a caveat.

Apparently, I'm too dour, sometimes. It's not a huge problem, but going forward, I need to know this is my Achilles' heel. I should never tell people I'm tired; I should act as confident as my knowledge makes me.

I was initially miffed. I never wanted to give the impression that I didn't want to be at the restaurant that I had fallen in love with... wait, initially? No, I am still really miffed. Because the hard work I put in at this restaurant, and the amount of extra hours I committed to this place, required fire and passion. Were my extra hours not demonstrative of this love? How could they not see that? I wanted to give my bosses only the very best, and if that didn't come across, then I was disappointed.

...with myself.

Because I had received this criticism before. Obviously, I wasn't doing something right.

There's some sort of disconnect between my emotions and the rest of the world. I am so happy with my decision to become a cook, I am so happy I finished such an amazing internship, I love what I do.

But that really doesn't matter. Here's the general career lesson: not only should you actually enjoy what you're doing, but all of your positive emotions should be visible. It's simple: being around someone who is obviously positive (maybe not to the Pollyanna extent) is enjoyable. It isn't complicated; you don't have to dig for their emotions (like you do with me), and you don't have to handle them with kid gloves because you just don't know what's up in their head.

When I re-read that entry last week about our event gone south, it felt really icky. I wanted to be honest, but I also wanted this blog to be positive. Taking a catering job, I know to expect some strange events and hard days. But its all about how you look at it: was that a terrible fucking day, or a 12-hour learning experience? By any novice's standards, that should be a 12-hour learning experience. And it was -- so that's why I deleted an obviously negative post.

And it felt pretty awesome. To work through something so crummy and come out with helpful insight. I do it more often than I think, and more often than I show.
I'm an INTJ -- a pretty on-point description provided by the Myers-Briggs personality test. If you follow this sort of thing, then you might understand why these problems are fairly INTJ-specific. 


Oh, wait, what did I say? It doesn't matter.

I am so deeply in love with what I do, but I shouldn't have to explain that. No one should be forced to explain something so important and complicated as love. So show it.