Mushrooms

Because I love the distinctive woodsy taste of mushrooms, I rarely combine them with other vegetables but prefer to cook them alone so nothing interferes with their flavor. Ordinary cultivated mushrooms make wonderful soups, but wild mushrooms offer a completely different dimension.

The best way to learn about wild or exotic varieties of cultivated mushrooms is to buy them as you see them appear in the markets and take them home and experiment. While I’ve never had a mushroom I didn’t like, some are distinctly better than others.