President's Message

Our short summer is, as usual, flying by much too quickly. The forays have been well attended as have been the Monday evening meetings, making for a swell mushroom season so far this year with the best yet to come.

2003 Summer Meetings

Monday Evening Meeting, June 9

At the June 9 Monday evening meeting we all received a wonderful treat from Ralph Engel. Ralph and his friend, Dr. Raul Cifuentes, presented to us their very professional looking mushroom and music program which Rolf has decided to call appropriately "Ode to Minnesota Mushrooms." Here is the amazing wrinkle; most of the slides used in the program were taken by Rolf in his yard. The program is composed of Ralph's fine mushroom slides coupled with a background of classical music. The overall experience of watching and listening created a feeling of tranquility as a result of the program's mystical and meditative quality. Although I do not believe that any of our members achieved the nirvana state, it was nevertheless a most relaxing and pleasurable show to watch. Adele's Mehta's detailed interview with Ralph regarding his program is contained herein.

Monday Evening Meeting, July 14

We devoted this meeting exclusively to the identification of mushrooms brought in by members. There was a nice turnout of members considering that there were a few thunderstorms that night. The mushrooms identified are as follows:

Amanita vaginata	Phellodon niger
Boletus bicolor	Pluteus cervinus
Cantharellus cibarius	Polyporus varius
Exida alba	Pycnoporus cinnabarinus
Gymnopilus sp.	Rhodotus palmatus
Laetiporus sulphureus	Scleroderma sp.
Leucocoprinus luteus	Tricholomopsis platyphylla
Lyophyllum decastes	Tyromyces chioneus
Marasmius oreades

Monday Evening Meeting, August 11

During the course of the meeting we were treated to a great dish of sautéed Lobster mushrooms (Hypomyces lactifluorum) prepared by Chef Maxine Bethke. Maxine not only did the cooking, she also supplied the mushrooms. At the meeting we identified a good many mushrooms, including the following:

A couple of new members came to this meeting as well as a few members we had not seen in awhile which made for a another great get-together on a fine summer evening.