Doc & Jacques: Celebrating Fungi – The Wild Rivers Mushroom Club

In this episode of the Doc & Jacques radio variety show, Dr. GiGi Reed and Jacques Kepner speak with Kathleen Dixon, president of the Wild Rivers Mushroom Club, and Robin Rasch, organizer of mushroom hikes, about the Wild Rivers Mushroom Festival in Brookings. Kathleen and Robin discuss the festival’s educational focus, including foraging walks, mushroom […]

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Welcome.
Welcome.
You have now entered the cosmic radio
receptors of KCIW
one hundred point seven FM in Brookings, Oregon.
Thank you for tuning into this week's
real time hundredths
fabulous It's a 100. Program. Yay. Good press.
100 shows down. It is another great example

(00:31):
for our ladies first segment. Yeah. That's true.
I'm doctor Gigi, and my cohost is, as
always, Jacques Kepner. How are you, Gigi? Doing
fine for the hundredth show. Officially, I've been
telling people it's the past two months it's
our hundredth show. I was thought it was
close. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Docu
Jacques hundredth radio variety show.
Special thanks to sound engineers Tom Bozak, Ray

(00:52):
Simon, Michael Gorse, somewhere out there, Linda Bozak,
and others. You're hearing this live syndicated show
here on KCIW in Brookings, Oregon. And that
said, the same syndicated show will play in
exactly one week from today, next Wednesday,
at 8AM on KZH,
ninety six point seven FM in Eureka Humboldt,
and then a few hours later at my
old alma mater,

(01:13):
01:00 KFUG, one hundred and one point one
FM in Crescent City. So now you know.
Doctor Gigi and I have your coast covered.
Alright.
What medic wait. Before I go on this,
I wanna say, do you have any special
call outs to anybody? Yes. I do. I
do, doctor. Tell us about it.

(01:34):
He's talk she's talking German to her son.
And
hello, John Strom.
I hear you're listening. Shout out to John.
Woo woo woo. Thank you. And Sam. Hey,
Sam. If you're listening with Lucas. Right?
I said Sam. Oh. In German. Oh.
Oh, darn it. Now I know. Alright. What
medical marvels, good medicine, and health tips does

(01:54):
my German medical doctor, patent holding scientist,
and university professor have for us today on
this week's health segment of MDGG?
Well, today, we are going to talk about
blood pressure medication.
Often oh, okay. Wrong. Often, I see patients
with severely elevated blood pressure

(02:16):
and then they say, I feel fine. I
do not need any blood pressure medication.
To which then I always try to explain
the following.
We do not feel the high blood pressure
because our body compensates for the elevated pressure
by strengthening
the blood vessels. And we found out last
week when we talked about the kidneys, that

(02:36):
the kidneys are the ones that pretty much
regulate all your blood pressure. Right? Darn tootin'.
Alright, folks. Doctor Gigi just told me that
I have acute appendicitis.
I asked her if that was better than
an ugly one.
Okay, doc. Keep going. I'm sorry.
Alright.
So let's go back to my serious blood

(02:58):
pressure thing. This strengthening of the arteries has
the adverse effect of narrowing and stiffening
of the arteries.
And when this happens, they're now called atherosclerotic
arteries. Oh, that's a big word. Once these
arteries stiffen, the heart must push harder to
circulate the blood Makes sense. Which then increases
the pressure and causes additional hardening, which leads

(03:20):
to atherosclerotic
plaque formation
until at some point,
no more or only a little bit Nothing's
gotta give. The blood doesn't make it through
the plaque. So this causes the tissue around
the blockage or beyond the blockage to get
less oxygen
and nutrients,
and they will get damaged then. What is

(03:42):
a dead artery called? Does it kill it,
I mean? Or it could just No. The
artery is fine, but the the tissue that
the artery or the arterials or the capillaries
provide the oxygen and the,
food to they can't get to So then
necrosticizes?
What's the word? Necrosticizes
or it dies?
Well, it gets clogged up. Oh, yeah. K.
Hey, doc, what's the opposite of The tissue

(04:04):
can yeah. Yeah. Necrocyte. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's
what's the opposite of antibiotics,
doctor? Uncle biotics.
Hey, I finally got Robin to crack a
smile on that one.
Alright. What else? Alright.
Boy, I don't know your jokes and my
serious thing here. Well, it's a new format

(04:24):
that we're working on.
So when you have the hardening of the
arteries and the narrowing of the blood vessels
and no more tissue getting the nutrients and
the opposite,
oxygen,
This process then raises the likelihood for heart
attack,
stroke,
dementia,
heart failure, kidney problems, nerve damage, vision problems,

(04:44):
and more. Wow. So what is blood pressure?
Blood pressure is defined as the pressure
of blood
against the walls of the arteries
as the heart pumps it through the body.
Well, I'm no good at math doctors, you
know. But I heard that five out of
every three people struggle with it too.

(05:06):
You touched some funny boys? Remembering last week.
So remember that's mine, Pia.
Last week when I said our baseline
long term blood pressure is regulated at the
kidney. Right. We learned that. The heart regulates
sudden blood pressure changes, adjusting how fast and

(05:27):
how forcefully
the heart beats, which in turn is based
on the body's demands and autonomic signals. And
that's why a lot of people think the
cardiologist should regulate
the blood pressure because the cardiologist want it
very low. That's That's what they want so
the heart doesn't get any damage. Woah. Talking
about the hearts, nine out of ten,
cardiologists
concur that the absolute worst time to have

(05:49):
a heart attack is while playing charades.
Alright.
So let's talk about the actual talk, the
blood pressure medication because that's what I think
is really, really cool. So Okay. The actual

(06:10):
blood pressure medication
tries to treat
certain things. Right? The first real blood pressure
medication on the market was Chlorothiazide
in 1958.
That's the year of my birth? That is
'58. Yes. Chloroaros. So it's not that old.
Well, it's kind of old. You're so good
at these saying these names for us. So
its function was to prevent the reuptake

(06:33):
of the sodium
in the kidneys. Remember we're talking about the
kidneys Yeah. That's right. From what is filtered
through the kidney sponge.
And then when the sodium is not
taken back up into the kidneys, then it
has to be excreted in the urine. But
Urine trouble. But
but we don't pee out sodium or sodium

(06:55):
chloride as little salt crystals. So it actually
drags water out of it as well. So
we have less blood volume. Okay. With that,
we have less blood pressure. There's less volume
to pressure around.
So with less blood volume, the blood pressure
goes down as the heart has to pump,
what, less forcefully Mhmm. And less And less

(07:16):
oxygen. Very interesting. Well, I went to see
doctor Gigi about my short term memory problems.
The first thing she did was make me
pay in advance.
Woah.
Shows how much influence I have on her.
So now we're in the sixties. In the
sixties, we have Right. That brought us beta
blockers, beta one blockers.

(07:37):
And,
they are they block the,
receptors that activate the heart from beating faster
as we're stressed. Right? Our heart goes faster.
So that is the stress hormone that goes
to the beta one,
receptors and then our heart beats faster. So
if we're blocking that, then
our heart cannot beat faster and therefore

(07:58):
lowers the blood pressure in that way. Beta
blockers are not very good blood pressure. They're
not. But they were like the the cutting
edge.
They were in the sixties. They were and
those drugs include metoprolol,
propranolol,
and a lot of drugs that end with
o l or beta blockers. It's true.
Now in the sixties, we also have

(08:21):
the advent of the calcium channel blockers.
The calcium channel blockers are used for blood
pressure
a different way. They dilate the arterioles and
therefore give us more relaxed path passageway of
the blood to go through the blood pressure,
and
the blood pressure is lowered that way.
Examples of that one end with dipin

(08:43):
amlodipin,
phalodipin,
etcetera. You call me dip all the time.
Hey. Do you know that I went to
the worst faith healer last night? Seriously, the
worst. He was so bad, a gal in
a wheelchair got up and she walked out.
Okay. We're into the seventies now, doc.
In the seventies, now we have the newer

(09:06):
so called newer ones. They're the angiotensin
converting enzyme inhibitors or ACE inhibitors. Okay.
And after that, the angiotensin
receptor
blockers or ARBs.
So
they prevent
a major pathway that usually gets
initiated by the kidneys

(09:26):
when the blood pressure drops. So when the
blood pressure drops, it it starts that cascade
and so then it increases the blood pressure.
Now when we're inhibiting that, we actually lower
the blood pressure. And those are the newest,
coolest
as,
of the nineteen seventies, I guess. The ACE
inhibitors end with

(09:47):
pril. There is lisinopril.
Lisinopril? I've heard of that. Pril. Ben benazepril?
Yep. See? Good. And,
examples of the ARBs
end with sartan there. Satan. Sartan. Sartan. Losartan.
Sartan. Valsartan.
It's Woah. Hey, doc. What do you call
a nose without a body? What? Nobody knows.

(10:13):
Goodness gracious. Okay. I'm gonna be wrapping this
up. All of those are the main groups
of blood pressure medications. There are some more.
And there are other ways to keep
our blood pressure low,
including weight loss. Weight loss is basically always
the answer if you're overweight. Eating well.
Regular exercise
and

(10:33):
diet adjustments. Eat lots of mushrooms. I ate
a bunch of mushrooms yesterday, and I put
them on a slice of pickle, mushroom, and
a little mustard and it was like a
zero calorie. Yeah. You made me a little
oh, that was good. That's good, right? Yeah.
It's really good. Alright. Is that it, doc?
For I understood about half what you said
today, but that's okay. I heard all your
jokes, though.

(10:54):
You know, they used to time me with
a stopwatch,
but now they use a calendar.
Scientists have recently discovered that protons actually have
mass. Did you know that? I didn't know
they were Catholics.
Did you?

(11:14):
Catholic Dixon, you're invited every show, please.
Just sit in that chair right over there.
She's laughing at the microphone.
I'm giving our guest away, but, let me
have a little short prologue here. Thank you
for that, doctor. That was very enlightening. I
think I understand one tenth of it, but
it was it was pretty good. I don't
have high blood pressure. Right? No. No. I'm

(11:34):
I'm good. You know, folks, there's something profound
about people who spend their time thinking about
mushrooms.
Not just thinking. I'm gonna call it obsessing.
The kind of folks who wake up at
dawn after a rain, put on their boots,
and disappear into the coastal forests
with nothing but a basket and an almost
religious sense of purpose.
In a way,

(11:55):
I I do. I I admire them. There's
something different about the foragers of the mushroom
fruit.
Now, when the organizers of next week's or
this week's, this coming week,
Wild Rivers Mushroom Festival in Brookings, Oregon takes
place
at the Chetco Brewery for two awesome days,
you will
find out that this is not a typical

(12:16):
craft fair festival. Instead, prepare to meet mycology
mystics,
fungal philosophers.
How about this one? Spore whisperers.
Here. Oh, I bet. Or people who understand
just announce every I'm a spore whisperer.
I'm gonna use it. I will. Do it.
Do it. So fungal philosopher and mycology mystic.

(12:37):
But these are people that that understand beneath
every footstep in our forest. There's an invisible
highway of mycelium,
connecting trees, sharing nutrients,
passing on messages about the natural world
that we're only beginning to decode.
They will tell you if you ask them
over a cup of mushroom coffee,
that mushrooms are nature's ultimate magicians

(12:59):
because they can appear overnight like see like
secrets made visible.
They break down death and they transform it
into life.
And they're neither plant nor animal, but something
gloriously
strange and in between,
almost different worlds,
reminding us that our world contains more mystery
than categories can hold. So when this dedicated

(13:21):
crew decided to celebrate fungi, they didn't just
plan a festival. They crafted an invitation,
a chance for the rest of us to
slow down,
look closer, and remember that wonder isn't reserved
for exotic places. It's right here. It's pushing
up through the forest floor, hiding under logs,
fruiting from trees,
and often and impossibly

(13:43):
wonderful colors.
This coming weekend,
they will guide foraging walks, host identification
sessions, and probably geek out over the difference
between a chanterelle and a false chanterelle
with the enthusiasm
most people reserve for sports playoffs.
There will be mushroom art. Oh, I forgot
to bring my mushroom piece down. Oh, darn

(14:04):
it.
There's gonna be demos that, about cooking demos
that,
the joy that when a community comes around,
gathering around something so beautifully and wonderfully unique.
And the organizers of the Wild River Mushroom
Festival
I've been laughing so much my nose.
Me too. And I don't have

(14:25):
I don't have a
Oh, there is a I'm getting Oh, my
God. Thank you. Okay.
So
the organizers,
well, I'll just just skip on here. So
here is to those that find magic in
the margins
and build community around curiosity,
for they are the planners and the dreamers

(14:46):
of decomposition,
and they find beauty in the breakdown,
reminding us all that sometimes the most interesting
things lie in the shadows just waiting to
pop up and dazzle us. So without any
further,
hubris from me,
I'd like to introduce our guests today on
the Doc and Jacques Show. Welcome, Kathleen Dixon

(15:07):
and Robin
Roche. Show
me. To it. Hey. And that was Kathleen
Dixon that was laughing laughing. Throughout. And and
Robin would occasionally go.
I would hear a little bit. I'm smiling.
It seems smiling.
Welcome to the show, but I you gotta
be on the show all the time, Kelsey.
I I have to I have to let
everyone know. I have to reassure people we

(15:27):
have not been doing mushrooms.
Right? Or anything else. It's a Hunter's stroll,
though. But I am. Darn it.
You would cover me.
Oh, my goodness. Alright. Kathleen and Robin, thank
you for being here. We have to ask
you the normal beginning questions.
What is your title and position

(15:48):
in both of you in this organization?
Robin? Robin? I am a member of the
club, and I'm a volunteer with the,
mushroom festival.
Alright. Excellent.
And I do and and I do personal
my own personal hunting and foraging.
Hunting, mushroom hunting. That is yeah. In Brookings

(16:10):
area, just pretty much?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. How about Kathleen? Well, so first,
Robin's selling herself a little short. She actually
is the
right hand man for Yerma, who is our
hike leader. And Robin and Yerma corral
15 people eight different times over the course
of this two day festival and make sure
they get where they're going, have a lot

(16:31):
of fun hunting mushrooms, looking at mushrooms, etcetera.
So she's an integral part of our group.
So you're gonna be one of those people
that's actually leading or following everybody behind? Organizing
them and getting them Good. Signed up to
where they're gonna be hunting. Right on. Yeah.
Okay. I'm herding herding cats. There you go.
Yeah. So as far as me,

(16:52):
yeah. So what was the question again?
What's your title and position in the Wild
Rivers Mushroom Festival or Wild Rivers Mushroom Club?
So, I'm the,
current president because nobody else wants the job.
And and, we founded the Mushroom Festival in
2017. So I kinda,

(17:13):
like, make sure things are all getting done
and and find great people like Robin to
take on some of the different duties of
running a festival such as ours. I try
really hard not to do it all by
myself. We love having a committee of people
who puts this on, and without all of
them, this would not be happening. So that's
who I am. We just found out you're
a five zero one c three now. We

(17:34):
did become a five zero one the beginning
of this year, end of last year. So
that's Congratulations.
Very nice. Wild Rivers Mushroom Club is is.
How Yeah. That's the organization, and Wild Rivers
Mushroom Festival is our main fundraising
event. Event of the So when is that
taking place? The festival is this Saturday and
Sunday, November,

(17:56):
10AM to 4PM at the Checo Brewing Company,
830 Railroad Avenue. In Brookings. And In Brookings.
And for you folks that are hearing this
in,
in Eureka and and Crest City next week,
you will the the festival will already be
over. But the Humboldt Eureka
has a big mushroom club, and they always
are throwing events too. So keep your eye

(18:17):
out open for that. Cool.
So what is difference this different to this
year,
of the with the Wild Mushroom Festival
versus the other year. And how long has
it been around? Yeah. 2017.
So it is eight years old. Well, when
we of course, we had to stop in
2020 and 2021.
Yeah. COVID break. Yeah. Yeah. So this is
actually our, like, sixth time, something like that.

(18:40):
So Feel very good. So is it what
is different now than it was last year,
for example? What is different now than last
year? In terms of the club or the
festival? A festival. I'll see either one. We're
doing less hikes. You're doing less hikes? Why?
Because we're getting older? Or was it because
it's We tried to do 16 last year,
and and Robin can attest. Well, it it's

(19:01):
in demand, really. Two days. Doing less is
not good. Having more is better, but it
can be a bit strained for the people
that are the leaders, and
going to the different places that they look
can get kinda trampled. But,
it's very popular, and everybody
really learns a lot. And that's hands on.
And you're on the brew in the brewery
this year. Right? And so you have more

(19:22):
place, you have more space to show?
We we went to the brewery last year
for the first time and to try it
out. We weren't sure if a working business
would would work for us, but Mike and
Alex are fabulous. They're fabulous people. And and
they've made it work, you know, and they
they give us that entire warehouse space, plus
we use their sunroom, the room out front
for our lectures.
We are expanding this year. We've got a

(19:44):
second venue for some of the workshops,
Brookings event center, which is at 800 Chetco
Avenue.
And, there are three things going on there.
So, you know, we're we're trying to bring
to the, people who come to this what
they're looking for. And Robin's right. The hikes
are super popular. And if we had more
volunteers, hint hint Hint hint. We could do

(20:05):
more hikes. Ew. Hint hint.
So
but but, you know, we just we bring
in all kinds of experts and and all
kinds from from beginner classes to expert classes,
cooking classes, like you said.
We've got a lady coming to, teach how
you dye fabric with mushrooms. Woah. We've got
a guy coming to show you how to
grow mushrooms on logs,

(20:26):
things like that. As far as what's different
this year, every year is a little different
as we bring in different speakers and different
vendors.
But
always is that giant display of up to
200 different varieties of mushrooms Wow. All found
within about 50 miles of Brookings. And you
brought in some mushrooms. I'm not gonna try
them, but, yeah, they look very,

(20:46):
very they have spongy on the bottom there.
Do you No gills. No. There's gills. Oh,
there gills? That that has gills. Let me
see that. That's On top of a pumpkin
that you This so that looks like a
half a golf more than a golf ball
size. Oh. Oh, this is Like a softball
size. This is the size of of yeah.
Softball. It's probably a russula,
and people say that differently.
That's how I say it, which is just

(21:07):
to say that it's a gilled mushroom. I
don't know what russula it is. I can't
tell. I am no expert.
It's probably not edible. It's probably not poisonous.
And, these are popping everywhere right now. They're
just white. But does it taste good? No.
It doesn't taste bitter? No. It didn't. But
it has little gills. Once it it was

(21:28):
it was like a sponge, but then when
a little piece broke off, it has gills
underneath there. Mhmm. How interesting.
Mhmm. Wow. And these little guys, I I
don't know what they are either.
They also have gills. See? Oh, you hear
that? They're like little long stemmed,
yellow thing. Ish. Mushrooms like in Alice in
Wonderland. I mean, they just look like the
mushroom. So do you Now if you if

(21:49):
you these are bruisees and they turn purple
right away, what does that usually mean? It
depends because different varieties of mushrooms,
have different
features. And some mushrooms, when you touch the
stem or the cap, they'll stain blue.
If it's a bolete, for instance, a boleteous
type, then that staining blue will tell you
which boleteous it is. Woah. But, you know,
lots of mushrooms stain blue, but lots don't.

(22:12):
There's, there are some mushrooms that stain red
when you touch them. There are some mushrooms
that when you pick them, they start to
exude a milky substance from their gills. Those
are generally called milk caps. There are some
mushrooms when you pick them, if you hold
on to them for more than twelve or
so hours, they start to melt. They ink
out as it's as it's said. They're ink
caps.

(22:33):
And what they're doing is they're deliquescing,
I believe, is the right word. My goodness.
Deliquescing, I think. Medical terms. Exactly.
They're they're they're that's their spore. That that
black liquid stuff is their spore, and they're
just basically sending their spore where Spore was
burning. Yeah. Trip. And I mean mushrooms predate
dinosaurs Mhmm.

(22:54):
Billion years. I don't know how many millions.
One of one of our club members is
pretty sure mushrooms came to us from outer
space.
And and that's that's not
that's for reals. I mean, we he thinks
they came with, you know, the whatever, the
meteorology. Well, they have the same mitochondria. They
have the same DNA. They have this, like,
us on Earth. Yeah. So yeah. Well, they
don't they're they're more like they're not like

(23:16):
a plant. Nope. They're in between. They're like
plant is not like an animal. It can
have his own little I did not know
that mushrooms, like human beings, they breathe
in oxygen and they release carbon dioxide. Now
no other It's the same chemical. It's
not a plant. Yeah. Okay. It's between It's
a fungi. But you know what? So Fungi.
Yeah. I won't make a joke on that
one.

(23:36):
Alright. We've heard them all. Yeah. Yeah.
I was telling them jokes beforehand. This would
get me sniffling up. Is there, is this
year, Paul, going down is a very good
year for mushrooms? Rob, you wanna take that
long?
I think there's a lot out there, but,
obviously,
not all of them are edible.
So you gotta know what you're doing. But

(23:57):
I've been out in the woods a couple
of times just in the last couple of
weeks, and
there's a ton of stuff out there. Awesome.
So it just depends on what you're looking
for, if you're a scientist and looking for
samples of
unusual things that are out there, but for
a chanterelle hunter, which is what I usually
do,
it's hit and miss. You just have to
kinda time it. It right. It it depends

(24:19):
on the water. Right? How much and and
the temperature?
Yes. I mean, they're usually coming out after
the water. And we have Yes. Big water,
hot big water coming down. Just depends on
when they decide to come up because if
they come up too soon and it gets
hot, then they're gonna dry out. If they
come up and it's getting too wet, then
they're gonna get all Now we have here

(24:39):
are they mostly coming out in the fall
here or
or in the spring too? Which one is
the
Where I go, it's usually fall. The fall.
I don't know about spring. Do you do
Because Jacque, did you say in Missouri, they
come out in spring? The morels come out,
and they just it's morel in Missouri is
just synonymous. There's so many

(24:59):
Depends spring. Depending on the varieties.
It it's a it's it makes a difference
when they pop. For instance, what Robin's referring
to are chanterelles.
Here in our region, chanterelles usually pop right
after the first rains, generally September. Although you
can find chanterelles along the Oregon Coast Trail
in the fog as early as July. No.

(25:19):
Chanterelles in the East Coast generally pop in
the summer because that's when it rains. Yeah.
Morels, like you say, in the Midwest, that's
a spring phenomenon. But here,
it's also spring, but it's usually later. I
think March and April is average in Minnesota,
Michigan, Wisconsin.
But here, it's more like May, June, July,
and they follow the snow melt. We don't

(25:40):
have morels here on the coast necessarily.
Somebody will make me a liar and find
one. But Yeah. Never. Never. But, generally, they
aren't found here. We go to the Cascades
to look for them over by, up above
Medford, Lake Of The Woods, Butte Falls, that
area. And like I said, they follow the
snowmelt. And they can be popping as early
as Mother's Day and as late as July

(26:01):
or August.
No. It depends on the variety. We have
a friend who gets,
the mushrooms up by was it,
Yeah. Where we get our Watermelon
Creek or something. Yeah. In California. So in
in California
but it's higher up. It's it's high up.
So it's funny because I would guess it's
hotter there during the summer and not as

(26:22):
foggy or humid, I would guess. What what
are they picking?
Everything. He Mushrooms? Steven Kasemar, who's most probably
listening. Hey, Steven.
He's been on the show before as a
musician. He is showing pictures every day of
his I mean, he's got these monster bowls
filled with
yellowers or Stuff. I don't know. Or trunksets
or Yep. Where they stuck. You know what

(26:42):
I found out is that mushrooms,
when exposed to ultraviolet light
produce vitamin d. And
actually without even the light, they don't need
it to grow. But that makes
the mushroom the only item in the store's
protosuction
that has vitamin d. They did a study
in, don't quote me, Finland maybe, one of

(27:05):
the northern countries,
and they were testing to see if, the
vitamin d in mushrooms would, help pregnant women,
I believe.
They did some studies that showed that, eating
mushrooms was,
advantageous to women who were pregnant,
partly because we get vitamin d from the
sun.
And in the North, in the winter, there's

(27:25):
no sun or very little sun. So this
was an alternative way for, people to get
vitamin d. Is that true of farmed too?
Or is it not just wild? Yeah. All
of them as far as I know. Well,
they can also drink, vitamin d fortified milk.
No. They Yeah. That they could. Yes. They
could. I'm a start eating. But I wanna
get pregnant pregnant.

(27:46):
I I do. There's a
there. Gigi, I found this out. Did you
know that there's,
the
darker,
colored mushrooms
emit a taste very called umami, umami, which
was remember one of our umami? Umami. Umami.
Umami. Few things on our tongue, we get
the fine. Umami's taste bud. Yeah. They have
that especially Really? In

(28:07):
darker mushrooms. They exudes that. And there's a
there's a super rare in The United States,
a mushroom called devil cigar. And, of course,
it's only found in where? Texas. It's true.
Texas.
It's extremely rare with a it's unique
cigar shape that opens into a star. I
have never heard of that one. Yeah. And
it's called the Devil's Cigar. Look at it.
You can look at Google it. Or we

(28:28):
use perplexity now. There there's a mushroom called
dead man's hand that looks wild. Oh, I've
seen pictures of you. Oh my. Wow. Yes.
It's amazing. And that's You don't wanna eat
them. Can you tell us of any experts
that come in this year for the festival?
What what kind of experts do you have?
So we have, for instance, Noah Siegel. This

(28:48):
is his Noah Siegel.
Third year coming, maybe fourth. Mhmm. He and,
his partner Christian Schwartz wrote, Mushrooms of the
Redwood Coast. Oh. Then they wrote mushrooms of
cascadia.
He and a couple of other people just
finished the book mushrooms of Alaska.
He is one of the premier mycologists in
the country. Nice. And,

(29:09):
tickets are going fast for his lecture.
He speaks Saturday afternoon, I believe it is.
So we love having Noah. And Noah comes
in early and helps us identify that gigantic
display of mushrooms that we put out because
every year, you know, we find them and
we have to identify them. So people come
and can see, well, what are these and
all that. So Noah helps us with that.
I wonder if he knows Paul Stamets.

(29:29):
Probably. Yeah. Probably does. One of these days,
we're gonna have Paul down here. Yeah. I'm
I'm sure of it. Paul, if you're listening.
Come on down to the West. Him and
David Aurora is my other one that I
would love to get here. And and David
might be hearing your show in Humboldt County.
Yeah. Maybe next week. Brookings,
Oregon. Give me a call. [phone].

(29:52):
Or listen next week. You can hear it
all over again at,
at KZCH
ninety six point seven FM. Alright. We have
to break right here because time flies when
we're having fun. It's already that mid break
time here on the Jacques and Doc live
radio show proudly broadcasting
from the KCIW
one hundred point seven FM studios in lovely
Coastal Brookings, Oregon and beyond. The list of

(30:14):
major sport sponsors for this community radio stations
are Advanced Airlines flying in and out of
nearby Crescent City to Oakland and LA seven
days a week. Michelle Buford, hello to you
with our own vibrant local Curry County Chamber
of Commerce. We've got Nick and Lisa Rael
and their PPA or the Partnership for the
Performing Arts. And lastly, my dear cohost, doctor

(30:35):
Gigi Reed, and yours truly, Jacques Kepner, on
behalf of KCID,
KCIW.
Thanks to all of you. Gigi, what more
questions we have for our guests? So for
people who wanna go to your festival,
but they wanna
practice on their own, what do people have
to know about identification of mushrooms? What are
the biggest points?

(30:57):
Yeah. Robin. Robin.
Well, I mean, there's lots of manuals that
like, David Aurora has a good little manual,
and there's other
professionals that have manuals
as a guide.
But my personal opinion is going out with
somebody that knows and actually having a hands
on experience of looking at things and not

(31:21):
in the ground, you know, not Yeah. Where
they grow and how they habitat.
So what would you as a guide, you
are a guide. What do you point out?
Actually, I'm not a guide. You're a group
of organizations. You're just organized
Yeah. For myself,
I'm guiding
the way I learned was by going out
on forays with people that know what they're
doing. Mhmm. And,

(31:41):
when you say looking for, it's pretty
varied because they're different habitats and different mushrooms
grow in different habitats.
So it just depends on what's in season,
what you're looking for. Does it grow in
that area?
So there's lots of things Yeah. So Jacques
always looks, do they have gilts or not?
I mean, that's basically all he That's something.
I had to destroy him to find out

(32:02):
because I can't sit down on my knees
anymore
and put that butt underneath it. So I
tend to break it off and look at
it. Well, and that is important though if
you're gonna take a picture that you don't
just take it from above. You kinda go
underneath and actually pull away a little of
the soil to see just how it's coming
up out of the ground.
So there's lots of little things you have
to know. I noticed a bunch of them

(32:22):
the other day. Now we live in Crescent
City, but out in Lake Earl Wilderness, a
bunch of them, there are so many I
couldn't believe how many different types, but I
noticed many of them had been chewed on
by some
small animal.
They were they were tripping out on them.
You?
I mean, maybe so. You know, raccoon became
a a rat.
Who knows? But they transformed it, but I

(32:44):
don't know if that's maybe oh, you see
it. And if it's good enough for an
animal to eat it, then it might be
good enough for us. No. Not necessarily.
I don't know if they don't take that
as gospel folks. You know, I'm but you're
doing some really important things by your observation
because that's really the key to all of
this, is being very specific
about texture, colors,
you know, whether it's shiny, whether it's dull,

(33:06):
whether it's got powder on it, whether so
there's lots of details. I saw a golf
ball one. It was a perfect golf ball,
slightly smaller. But it was just sitting there
waiting to be, you know, hit with a
stick. I love that one bee. But So
so the,
the mushrooms are actually just the fruiting bodies.
Right? The main thing is the mycelium is
the little feet underground.

(33:28):
Do the mycelium pretty much look the same?
I mean, they're so tiny. Can you even
see them? Do you really just go with
a rooting body?
If, if you're a gardener and you've ever,
like, turned over a a dead log in
the spring when you're getting your garden ready
and you see that white filmy everywhere on
that log, that's mycelium. Mycelium.
And mycelium is oftentimes different colors. Mhmm. But

(33:50):
it all basically
and, again, not an expert,
but it all basically acts the same. It's
a it's a thread like, creature that
basically makes its way into its habitat, whatever
its chosen habitat is.
If it's a saprophyte,
which is the kind that breaks down the
lignin in wood, then it lives on dead
wood or dying wood, And it goes through

(34:12):
that wood, and it basically eats that, breaks
it down. If it's a mycorrhizal,
that is the kind that lives in symbiotic
relationship with a plant or a tree.
It's gonna be down in the ground, and
it's usually
going to be,
giving the tree or the or the bush
the nutrients it needs and in return getting
nutrients from the tree or the bush. Like
the pea. I don't know. The pea like

(34:33):
like nitrogen fixing Yep. Plants. Exactly. Exactly.
Mycelium
plays an amazingly important role in our world.
People don't realize when you use fungicides
to, kill because there's bad fungi in the
ground. You know, there's there's the honey mustard
is a good example. It's a it's a
The honey that's the biggest one in the
world. Yep. The largest human organism. It it's

(34:55):
killing those trees.
It's not the kind of mushroom you would
necessarily wanna cultivate. It has its own place
in the world. Everything does. But,
using fungicides
indiscriminately
is killing an awful lot of the good
mycelium as well. So it's just
it's all part of that circle of life.
I never thought of that. Fungicides,

(35:16):
that's a chemical
That kills fungi.
Oh, my.
Pesticide
often pesticides. Like,
nail fungi,
onychomycosis.
The It also kills out. It's it's not
good for us because we're very closely related
to the fungi. And you could breathe in
their spores. Not good idea? Is that what
you're saying? Or something like that? No. Absolutely

(35:37):
not at all. But they're also the mycelia
also help defend
pathogens when they're living with not just eating
the dead wood, but maybe living with the
wood. And what did you hear that the
largest Yeah. The largest living organism
organism in the entire world is a living
honey mushroom, which you just said, or the
mycelium underneath it's in guess where? Oregon's Malheur

(36:00):
Yep. National Forest, and it covers
2,000
one single entity
of the mycelium, 2,385
acres or three and a half miles and
is estimated to be 2,500
years old, at the
youngest. It's pretty amazing. It is the largest.
So you get your friends on the next
game you play with trivia.

(36:22):
So what's a lot of people say, it's
a blue whale or whatever. So so if
we're doing trivia, let me throw this out
at you. There's a there's a there's a
parasitic mushroom known as cordyceps.
And there are a number of different varieties
of cordyceps, but the one that I'm gonna
talk about tends to,
take over the body of an ant. Oh,
yeah. That is yeah. This is And the

(36:43):
tropics. Mhmm. It it takes over that critter's
mind. It makes it climb to wherever on
the tree it wants to be, and then
it slowly devours that that animal. Those are
a medicinal mushroom, highly sought after, those cordyceps,
but they're all parasites.
And it's it's absolutely amazing Woah. What these
things do. We have a parasite here in,

(37:04):
Brookings.
It doesn't Don't bust me. It doesn't it
doesn't it doesn't it doesn't parasitize,
ants or bugs. It parasitizes
other mushrooms. It's known as the lobster mushroom.
And it's a it's an edible, sought after,
but it basically takes over the body of
a different kind of mushroom and makes it
an edible.
It looks like kinda it's the same color

(37:25):
as a lobster. And if you get them
too old, they will stink to high heaven
like lobster.
Oh, my gosh. You don't wanna pick them
then because they're they're overdone.
But yeah.
It's just amazing what No. I don't know
if you know Otzi. Otzi is like this
ice ice
five thousand years in ice in the Alps
somewhere they found him. And he had a
little satchel, and he had

(37:46):
two, mushrooms, one for medicinal use, and one
two kinds of mushrooms. That frozen guy they
found after the And one to start fires
with. Right? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I
only know the one with the yeah. Could
be. Because there is because the the conchs,
the, the woody shelf like mushrooms that you'll
find on dead and dying trees, we have
them all over the place also. There's one

(38:07):
I think it's phomatopsis
is the one, but it was used as
a fire starter,
for in for indigenous people years and, you
know,
thousands of years ago. Wow. Wow. I think
that's the right one. Let's talk food. Will
there be recipes, cooking, and taste testing at
the There will. Yeah. There will.
Hopefully, we've talked to a number of restaurants
in town, and there are at least four

(38:28):
that are showing up on the website that
are supposed to have special mushroom dishes during
the festival.
So do check our website and go and
and, visit those restaurants in particular.
We will have a cooking workshop Saturday afternoon
with Chad Hyatt. He's a renowned, chef out
of the Bay Area. Afternoon with Chad Hyatt.
He's a renowned,
chef out of the Bay Area.
And then on Sunday afternoon, Trent and Kristen
Blizzard are coming, and they're gonna talk about,

(38:50):
I think they're doing tinctures, medicinal tinctures Oh,
cool. This year.
And then, of course, the,
vegan truck at, Checo Brewing. Yep. Alex is
putting together some mushroom soups, and she did
a fabulous mushroom burger last year just not
using hamburger, but Right. Mushroom. Yeah. Yeah. And
she did a couple of other things, with
mushrooms. What is your website so where people

(39:11):
can go to? Wild rivers with an s.
Wildriversmushroomfestival.com.
K. You couldn't make it any longer. Nope.
Wildriversmushroomfestival.com.
Maybe next year we'll change it to wrnf.com.
Right. That's what we refer to it as.

(39:31):
Any mushroom art?
Is there Yeah.
Yeah. We've got we've got some vendors doing,
selling different types of arts. One of our
members, Magdalena, she's been a regular vendor for
years, and she does really cool stuff. I
have no idea to what she's got going
this year. But, you know, artwork,
ceramics.

(39:51):
One year, we had a lady who took
driftwood and put
ceramic type mushrooms on it and then put
little fairy lights on it. They were fabulous.
So cute. Yeah. Awesome. So Jacques is an
artist and his first pictures were mushrooms. So
most of them, but I still got a
couple of the favorites. I'll talk to you
about that later. But what is the the

(40:12):
hard,
the hard mushroom
that that looks like half a plate is
stuck to a tree? And it's on Oh,
yeah. That's a shell. I've seen that pulled
off and then painted
and set up like Oh, the like a
dome. And it's so beautiful. Wow. Yeah. Those
are those are known as conchs. That's a
general word. They're the shelf mushrooms.
They are a they're a sacrifice. So when

(40:33):
you find a shelf mushroom like that growing
on the tree, that tree is dying.
Now that mushroom's not killing that tree. That
mushroom is just doing what it's supposed to
do, break that tree down. And it'll take
decades sometimes. It doesn't, like, happen overnight. Like
hospice.
But the one you're talking about is also
known as the artist's conch.
And if you etch the underneath, which is
where the spore comes from, that's that's it's,

(40:54):
like
this is this is the underneath this one.
Well, a shelf one has a solid white,
and if you etch it, it it stays.
Wow. And, yes, people do use those for
artwork all the time. Sometimes you get them
really So they don't they don't they don't
decompose?
Those Mhmm. The no. I mean, probably eventually,
but Yeah. Not

(41:16):
for a long I have They're hard. They're
just Yeah. Oh, I have a box of
KONGS, and some of them are this big
that I got from Judy Mae Lopez. Yeah.
Wow.
Wow. Yeah. What a what a trip. How,
does the festival help educate the public? Okay.
Let's go into detail. So you're hap it's
$5 you get in, and you can look
at all these different mushrooms,
mingle and look at the,
all the different

(41:37):
displays and whatnot. But then you have separate
what? You go into the,
the reception area at the brewery, and you
have
that that's what we're talking about. We're going
into it. What happens? Where do we what
do we see? So, do you wanna jump
in? Well, the I mean, I can do
the display. The display is I don't know
how many tables long.

(41:59):
12 or something. Yeah. It's pretty immense. Long
ones. Yeah. And it's set up almost like
a forest setting,
so it looks like you're walking into a
mushroom forest. And it's really I've
started doing the festival
visiting it in 2019, and it was just,
like, mind blowing because it's so

(42:19):
amazing.
And,
right down to
the mossy
ground cover, I mean, it it was pretty
natural. It's nature. It's not pretend mushrooms. It's
real Over a thousand. Was that what somebody
said? Couple 100 usually. Couple 100. Okay. Yeah.
But we It looks like a thousand.
It's it's immense.
And there's big and little, and and and

(42:40):
then you have people that are standing there
to help help people
identify them and if they have questions about
the display. So it's really informational and educational.
You have little signs that say these are
chanterelles, or
Yeah. I think they're going to have some
kind of identification tag. Chanterelles and then false
Sean. False Sean thrills. Right. And I wouldn't

(43:01):
necessarily use that as a guide that I
would then know to go out and harvest,
but it's really just informational.
And
you can you can ask questions about,
each one. So people will be standing at,
like, at each station and you can ask
them. So they go out and hunt those
mushrooms the days before or the day before

(43:21):
and We we've got people out there today
that were looking for mushrooms. I mean, some
stuff like the conchs, you can pick anytime
and, you know, and they'll see. But, like,
I have a pile of compost out in
front of in my front front yard, and
I just noticed the other day it's got
a whole bunch of these little tiny, very
fragile, black looking mushrooms. I'm not completely sure
what they are. And so I'm not gonna

(43:42):
pick them till Friday afternoon to take them
in, because they won't last. They won't yeah.
They won't last. You know, we're right downstairs
here at the KCIW
studio from the Black Trumpet restaurant up there.
Mhmm. And they've got those big,
beautiful
mushroom
coloring on the windows. I love looking at
that. Yeah. And I guess there are black
trumpets in this area. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. That's
that's one of the kinds of a highly

(44:03):
sought after edible. Usually pops in November, December,
give or take.
It likes damp,
dark areas like gullies,
along the streams,
favors huckleberry,
usually, in Salau,
mostly huckleberry.
Sadly, the Checo Bar fire burned up quite
a few of our best patches, but they're
out there still. You know, you just gotta
get, you know, creative. Yeah. We've got a

(44:25):
fire. Yeah. Tell her the story. No. Well,
different story. So some people are surprised that
they grow in dark areas.
It's not really surprising because they're not plants.
They don't need the sunlight. Yeah. That's exactly
Also, we heard that there are certain mushrooms
that thrive on freshly burned Oh, yeah.
Because the mycelium is still underneath there. It's

(44:45):
still got but there are, yeah, certain certain
right after burn, you find specific types. Well,
out West, that's where people hunt morels is
usually the the spring after a forest fire
Really? Is where morels will pop here in
the West. It's different than, you know, the
Midwest. Yeah. The Midwest would grow what we
would call naturals,
ones that come back year after year from
the same patch, which they say morels are

(45:08):
both mycorrhizal and saprophytic.
They're kind of a very unique mushroom.
So here,
logging areas,
forest fires, the spring after is generally.
There are other mushrooms that come up after
a burn too, but the morels are the
ones people find. What is the red one
with the white cottage cheese? Yes. An
Amanita. Amanita.

(45:29):
That's Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric.
Yeah. Fly agaric. It's gonna get you sick
if you eat it. It'll get you sick.
It's not gonna kill you. It's it's an
amenita, but it's not a deadly amenita. Like,
how do I do?
Some people think,
I'm not gonna say.
But how about Champignons?
No. I've heard you could say Anybody You
could say Champignons, those are I believe those

(45:49):
are button mushrooms. Right? Agaricus? Yeah. So they're
button mushrooms. Do they actually grow in the
wild anymore? Or They do. But I don't
think people harvest them because they're easily cultivated.
Yeah. Liberty caps, those are slightly those are
psilocybin. You pick the oh, they're psilocybin and
and if you pick them, they they fade
instantly. I mean That makes sense. I had
a whole handful in my pocket the other

(46:09):
day and they all disappeared. But I just
got home.
Well, did you ingest them as well?
Shh, client.
Doctor Gigi came home.
But to to get back to your original
question, you know, and Robin was explaining the
$5 to get in, that's what that gets
you. You get a chance to see that
display, talk to experts,
mingle with people who are mushroom nuts,

(46:32):
shop the vendors, buy books. We we sell
some of the books including, David Arora's book.
And all of that for $5. You can
eat there. You can hang out the whole
day.
The lectures are an additional, 20.
Some of the workshops we have, we charge
30 because you'll take home a log with
mycelium on it or a scarf that's been
dyed.

(46:53):
And then we do have one workshop which
is currently sold out, which is all day
long. And it's for,
beginners that are going out with an expert
and learning handbooks. And that's John. That's John.
And yeah. Pretty much all the hikes are
booked. Right? Yeah. The hikes are all sold
out right now. No. Are they are you
expecting
them to be rained out? There's gonna be
some rain? Oh, no. No. No. No. The
weekend is going to be perfect. Okay. Yes.

(47:14):
Very good. Oh, even if it was raining
a little bit. Well, that's what my question.
Right? You would still go out? Oh, yes.
Oh, yes. Mhmm. Yep. Robin can tell you.
Yeah. We go out. And, you know, when
you're in the woods, you're really protected because
there's trees and it's not like it's downpouring
on you. And it's actually
the right time to be doing that because
that's when they're out.

(47:35):
We went to Stout Grove when my friend
from Germany was here and her dog, Kathy,
was here. It started raining, so we had
to put the trash cans I mean, the
trash bags over us. Remember that? Yeah. I
didn't finish that
walk. I just chewed on those mushrooms. Remember?
I was staring at No. We weren't protected.
I was staring at a daisy for hours.

(48:00):
Oh, god.
Maybe that's good blood pressure. Yeah.
Do children get in free? Do they is
there a discount for Yeah. We children 12
and under are free. With the with the
parent. With the parent. Yeah. With the parent.
Yeah. Don't drop your kids off, please. And
this year every year, we we we really

(48:21):
like to educate the kids. And we've had
a hard time finding, the right teacher for
we haven't had a teacher for the last
few years. But this year, we have Rachel
Zoller,
and she's brilliant.
And she's gonna do a kids workshop on
Sunday morning, 10:30, I believe, is what time.
There are tickets available for that.
You require one adult with each kid. The

(48:42):
kid, of course, gets in free. The adult's
20.
And you can come in with your kid
and learn about mushrooms, and they can learn
about, you know, all the magic of hunting
mushrooms. It's it's it's gonna be really good.
I really hope we sell out. Not just
you're just not making money.
This is your main yearly
fundraiser for the
wild mushrooms,

(49:03):
Wild Rivers Mushroom Club. Pretty much. But but
in the back of all that, the reason
we even started this was because we really
wanted to share what we'd learned with as
many people as we could. So we try
to bring in the, the best speakers we
can find, you know, internationally known mycologists,
guys who've been one of our guys, John
Sommer, he's been coming for years. He's great.

(49:25):
He's wonderful. He was the president of the
Colorado Mycological Association. He's now living in Reedsport
and comes down, and he's kinda like our
resident mycologist, if you will.
Trent and Kristen Blizzard, they put together these
wonderful morel maps every spring,
that that map the burns.
What we're trying to do is
is

(49:46):
convey to everybody
how much fun
mushrooms can be. Right. Fun. You know, the
hunting, the the photography, the the creative, the
the cooking with, the making yourself well with.
I mean, the whole
gardening with. There's there's so many things that
mushrooms that mycelium does for us, that
that fungi does for us, and we just

(50:06):
wanna pass that along.
So what does the club do? When do
you meet one just before the festival, or
what do you do during the year? Monthly
meetings or yeah?
Yeah. The festival I mean, the club,
kinda went a little bit quiet for a
while when we had the COVID,
issues.
But it started back up again and,

(50:28):
there's
it's
a membership of $20 for a person, per
person or $30 for a couple.
And,
you get to participate in presentations
by guest speakers,
you go on forays.
Oh, boy. And education, just being educated about
going out and what that means,

(50:49):
and the practices of being in the forest
and harvesting
properly and respectfully.
So
it's it's educational,
but it's also a lot of fun, and
you learn
you learn from each other. Where where do
you meet and how often?
We have various places that we have met
in the past, so it it's always

(51:12):
local. And,
the activity center is one place we've met.
So, yeah. You also go do you know
you can learn about that on the website?
Oh, yes. Same website. By going to wildriversmushroom.festival.com.
It's a club. Does the club have it?

(51:32):
No. I don't know if it has a
club.
I if it doesn't, I'll create a page.
There you go.
We heard it. And come You've heard it
here. This is a festival because we'll have
sign up sheet down to people. Yeah. I'm
pretty sure. Show up to the festival. This
sounds like a lot of fun. What are
the hours again? Oh, sorry. Hours are Saturday
and Sunday, November,
10AM to 4PM each day.
Doors open Saturday morning at 09:30.

(51:55):
Yeah. Come and be on hikes. The hikes
Big crowd. The hikes start at the brewery,
or where does the hike start? Yeah. The
hikes start at the brewery. And, I mean,
I would encourage, even though we're sold out,
I'm being told by our foray leader, Yerma,
that she might try to put together a
last minute,
like, waiting list type hike because we've got
a couple of people coming to lead them,
and we've got nice weather. Right on. And

(52:16):
so just show up. If you really wanna
go to a high on a hike and
you couldn't get a ticket, just show up
anyway. And if we can, we'll fit you
in somewhere. Are you always looking for volunteers?
Yes, please.
Yeah. The volunteers and donations. This world, we're
wanting angel donors. We don't need donations necessarily.
We we do a pretty this festival
does a really good job of of paying

(52:37):
for itself
and giving the club a little bit of
extra to, you know, move forward each year.
We're, you know, setting up overnight for because
we just did a Matsutake foray up in
Reedsport with two of our speakers.
They invited some folks up, and they spent
the entire day hunting Mozzies and stayed over.
Wow. We're hope we did a morale foray
last spring that was real popular. We'll do

(52:57):
another one this year, maybe two.
You know, this we're a brand new five
zero one. In in the prior to this
year, we weren't a five zero one c
three, and so we weren't as worried about,
you know, using the money for
nonprofit educational purposes, but now we are. And
so we're coming up with all kinds of
new things that we can offer the club
that will make it worth their while, but

(53:18):
we always need volunteers. It takes
50 people plus to put this festival on.
Wow. It's not a it's and we start
planning again in January. Mhmm. How many how
many members does the club have? Right now,
we've got a mailing list of about 70
people and a paid membership list of about
half that. Okay. Cool. Not a huge $30

(53:39):
a couple. Sounds like a deal. Yep. Learning
all sorts of stuff. So they're gonna reach
out, by going to wildriversmushroom.
Oh, festival.com.
It's the best way. It's happening this week
between ten and four.
Doors open at 09:30.
Wow. What can I say? But thank you
for giving us this information, and thanks for
the laughter too. Yeah. It was just wonderful.

(54:02):
Oh, one question.
Should people know should they be wearing
boots,
wear light layers of clothes maybe? I would
definitely especially if you're coming from out of
town, I would come prepared for weather even
though we're pretty sure it's not gonna rain.
I would bring rain gear anyway.
If you're gonna be out in the woods,
then, yeah, boots are good,

(54:24):
hiking shoes, especially.
You know the trails here. They're up and
down. Basket with you? A basket would be
lovely.
We we've been known to use plastic bags
just to put them in, but once you
get back, you want you don't want them
in plastic. Right. That'll ruin them. That's good.
Right? Can you touch all of them? Do
you have to have separate little latex gloves
or something? You can touch all of them?

(54:45):
From what I've always understood and what the
experts say, even the deadly poisonous ones are
not gonna hurt you if you touch them.
That just does not lick the finger. Well,
even that isn't really gonna hurt you. You
actually have to ingest,
you know, like, a
a side dish worth or or a whole
mushroom worth for it to really hurt you.
And do you have a little trial too?
Or or do you just kind of Some

(55:06):
people pluck them. Some people cut them.
One thing you should have if you're gonna
be harvesting is a knife. Every I mean,
I have a knife in my bag. Oh
my gosh. I got a gun in mine.
Better watch it. Mine's just a little just
warning you. Mine's just a little revolver too.
Little tiny one.
Well, I'm not sure, Parker. What did I
say? Alright. Anyway, a knife is good. A

(55:28):
brush would be handy to brush off the
dirt and the and the duff.
I tend to cut mine unless I can
get to the base and then I'll pluck.
If you're picking them because you're not completely
sure what they are and you wanna, like,
bring them back to the festival and, you
know, get an answer,
it's ideal to pluck them like Robin has
said because oftentimes, the bottom of the mushroom
tells you an awful lot about what kind

(55:48):
of mushroom it is. Yeah. Aminitas are the
one that come to mind. The amenida has
a specific look to its base that no
other mushroom has, and that can tell you
if you've got an amenida
or a horse mushroom or another agaricus type.
Wow. That's one of the indicators. Fabulous information.
All going on this weekend, folks. Kathleen Dixon
and Robin, Rausch. Please, thank you. Please, Thank

(56:10):
you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you. Yes. Have fun with us. Yes.
Again. And laughing at his jokes. All day
ago. By the way, we have a few
minutes left. What does that mean, doctor? Alright.
Fun time corner. Okay. Did you know that
doctor Gigi and I were happy for so
many years?
And then we met.
Darn it. Hey, Ray. Ray watched the, the

(56:32):
the baseball game the other night, you know.
Baseball rolled into a bar. The bartender threw
it out.
Okay. Finally, I have a bad one that
nobody
doc doc, what What? Doc, what do you
give a man who has everything, doctor?
Penicillin. Penicillin.
Oh, that's cute. Alright. What do you got
for a quote? All mushrooms are edible. Some

(56:55):
only once.
Yep. Woah. Good. I think 2% or less
is poison. Okay. Keep give it another one.
Mushrooms are the interface organisms between life and
death.
Mhmm.
One more.
Now you're milking. Hey, I used to play
instruments by ear, but now I use my
hands.
I saw that one coming.

(57:17):
What do you call two monkeys that share
an Amazon account?
Primates.
Oh, that's
Don't tell anybody, doctor.
Don't tell doctor, but last time I had
a date and it was perfect.
Tomorrow, I think I'll have a fig.

(57:37):
Don't you hate it when someone answers their
own questions?
I sure do.
I've heard that fig joke, I don't know,
10 times and it always surprises me.
Hey. You heard the devil got busted? They
got him on possession.

(57:59):
Oh, okay. Give us some more quotes, doc.
I'm running out of jokes.
Mushrooms are the immune system of the forest.
So I have a more for us to
discuss, but
that was one.
Well, no. Mushrooms are the unsung heroes of
the food world. Wow. But they sang a
song. Alright. Yeah.
Did you hear oh, wait. Doctor Gigi thinks

(58:21):
that I'm weird now that I'm wearing a
helmet every time we eat. I'm just playing
it safe on my new crash diet.
Good one. Good
one. Mushrooms are not just food. They are
medicine.
Right. Yeah. Okay.
What's dead and sits in a closet? Did

(58:41):
I already say that one? Not in no.
What's dead and sits in a closet, folks?
The hide and seek champion from 1995.
No.
Okay. Is that it? Hey, up to come
to think of it, Moses had the first,
tablet that connected to the cloud.

(59:01):
Alright. Oh my god. Okay. Guess what? You
have been listening
to Doc and Jacques on KCOW
one hundred point seven FM in Brookings, Oregon.
We hope you enjoyed our show as much
as we have, learning about the Wild Mushroom
Festival with Kathleen Dixon and Robin Rash. Indeed.
Peace and prosperity everyone out there. Thanks again,

(59:22):
Tom and Linda and Ray and others that
make the show possible. If you know anybody
that's talented would be on the show, then
reach out to us at the doc and
jacqgmail
dot com.
That's it. Stay tuned for
Sony
Dershow
on KCIW. Thank you, folks. Bye.