Harvest to Table

Autumn into early winter is a great time to find fresh savory salad greens. Arugula is still in the market now and mustard, mizuna, and cress are easily found from late autumn to early spring. Cultivated mushrooms, such as the portobello, are easy to find year round, but their peak natural season is fall and [...]

The portobello mushroom is a large brown mushroom. It’s immature self–a small brown mushroom–is called a crimini mushroom and sometimes baby bella. In France, the portobello is called champignon de Paris. Champignon is the French word for fungus. In the wild the common brown mushroom can have a cap that grows 2 to 4 inches [...]

The oyster mushroom gets its name from its cap which, some say, resembles an oyster. The stem of the oyster mushrooms is perhaps more distinct; it unfurls something like one of those old-time paper lady’s fans. The oyster mushroom has been cultivated in Asia for centuries. Today it is very popular in Japanese and Chinese [...]

When it comes to cookery, the term mushroom refers generally to cultivated mushrooms. Almost all of the mushrooms that you will take home from the market for use in the kitchen have been cultivated indoors under controlled conditions. The mushroom is a fungus and to keep the strain pure, mushroom growers work hard to keep [...]

Mushrooms have a delicious woodsy flavor and are easy to prepare. You can enjoy mushrooms alone or with other ingredients. Use mushrooms in appetizers, salads, dips, soups, sauces, omelets, stews, pizzas and pastas, or match them with meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish. Mushrooms can be sautéed, broiled, grilled, steamed, or stir-fried. The best mushrooms are [...]

Cremini mushrooms have flavor. Creminis look just like the small all-white button mushrooms you see at the grocery store but a cremini is brown and has twice the flavor of a cultivated white mushroom. When cremini mushrooms fully mature they are called portobellos. The peak season for mushrooms harvested in the wild is fall and [...]