A time ago, I wrote a thing that felt like stumbling into a delightful discovery: On Foraging Mushrooms at Cheesman Park Sometimes I’ll amend a post, with updates from a later time, sometimes it’s easier to just make a separate part 2. Everything continues delightfully with picking them up from the grass I already walk around in regularly (frisbee, walking/scooting through or near the park). I’ve now encountered them far beyond {local park} I’ve now seen the same fruiting body in similar configurations in parks all around Denver. I’ll add a map screenshot. It feels like any time it rains even a little bit, and/or there is a bit of chilly weather (relative to the summer lately) or in many other conditions, these mushrooms will sprout. Anywhere there’s wood to metabolize. Mulch works, but it seems to particularly favor the root balls of long-gone trees, where there’s nothing above ground remaining. Sometimes I’ve made a guess and said “I think when it rains enough, mushrooms sprout right here: 👇” and it’s been correct. Other times I’ve simply noticed them in the grass along side of wherever I happen to be. Sometimes I see something that might be the caps in the distance, and i’ll go check and indeed, button mushrooms. Other times it’s a napkin. Improvements at cooking with 🍄 I’ve upped my bulk food prep game. I’ve always loved the instant pot, and now I have an even easier method. I could give it it’s own blog post, perhaps. I used to do a lot more chopping of things before steaming it into a meal in an instant pot. Then I’d use an immersion blender to blend it all together. Sometimes I’d use the blender before starting the instant pot, it all depended. Now I dump basically whole vegetables into the pot, washed but not cut (i’ll crack some things like carrots in my hands so they fit better), and cook it whatever amount of time the longest item needs. I might also cook soft stuff in, even the whole time (like dropping whole mushrooms into the pot before cooking everything for 50 minutes) or I’ll cook the whole thing slightly less (45 minutes), then open it up and add the ‘delicate stuff’ (like mushrooms, tomatoes, onion, garlic, still all whole or cut in half like once) and cook it 5 more minutes. Then everything gets spiced again, and then I use an immersion blender to blend/mix it all together. cooked Chickpeas can be added at the end after immersion blending to bring in some texture, ditto a few blocks of crumbled up tofu. If the tofu got a little sauté and tossed in the soup… damn. This method is much less work/time than it took before where i’d do more chopping/cubing of ingredients, sauté’ing some stuff before adding the bulk and cooking it. Sometimes the bottom of the contents would burn before the instant pot would get to pressure. So, this new method (whole plants placed loose into the container, some water, cook for as long as needed by the longest item (dry beans, squash) and then immersion blend. It’s all been excellent for me. ‘soy boy dinner’, some could call it. It’s conceptually similar (identical?) to beans/rice/sausage that I would cook for myself when I was a kid, and ate meat, but a bit more customized to my current personal preferences. I can make it delicious, and it makes a ton of food all at once. As always, I pour a big thing of olive oil over the whole thing when serving up in a bowl. An ongoing source of enjoyment and practical value I’ve now had exclusively fresh, free, delicious mushrooms from local parks now, for years, and feel reasonably changed by it. observation is a big part of curiosity, interest. Reading books by people who see some things so well and then write about it, of course changes ones own sense of observation. 1 I’m glad to have encountered cool books like this book about moss and this book about beavers, and this book about plants. I notice that if I’m doing my normal barefoot hill sprints thing, I can sometimes easily tell through my feet where I’ll find mushrooms. I continue to enjoy cooking with them, find them nourishing in all the normal ways, and of course stepping outside of capitalism is delightful. Bulk storage last year, ahead of the winter, after encountering surprisngly huge amounts of mushrooms, on a whim, I decided to try some bulk storage. the bulk storage I did for myself easily lasted through the winter, even though the winter was super dry. Turned out that mushrooms grew throughout the winter, especially in sunny spots, anytime there would be a bit of snow followed by warm-enough temps. So even after I opened my first bag of dried mushrooms that I stored in the freezer, I didn’t get very far through it before fresh mushrooms were popping up in the grass again and I’d go back to fresh mushrooms. The bag would go back in the freezer. Then I’d use up the fresh ones I got, go back to the dried ones. Last winter was very dry, but not super cold, so there were not many mushrooms growing throughout the winter, but again, I was surprised that there were any. Since last winter, I’ve made a few improvements to the process. I’ve gotten better at bulk storage. I’ll cook them at a lower temperature a bit longer in time (usually 220-240 f) and having a rack under them probably would make it go even better. I can pile them high on a baking sheet and turn them a few times: i’ll two sheets at a time, they can be condensed to a single sheet after the first bit of drying. Eventually, they’re fully dried and can be bagged and frozen. It takes a few hours. lower temperatures get closer to what a normal dehumidifier would do (140 degrees, maybe) but it takes too long for this large volume of mushrooms to get cooked down at that temperature. I finally got around to weighing the before and after weight of the mushrooms, and indeed the finished weight is exactly 10% of the pre-cook weight. The mass is about the same diminishment, so one can fit like three baking sheets of mushrooms, many pounds worth, into a small bag. In two stops at the park, I picked up enough mushrooms that, by the time I’d finished baking them down and storing in the freezer, I had enough mushrooms that I could not encounter another fresh mushroom at the park until next summer, and I wouldn’t bottom out the supply. two trips to the park, and I wasn’t even trying. I could have gotten 100 lbs of mushrooms both days, with just a few canvas bags. Here’s a photo. Up top is a container of about 2.5 pounds of mushrooms. The smallest of those bags contains the dried-out end result. The smallest bag has three containers worth of mushrooms in it. This represents perhaps 40 pounds of fresh mushrooms. Mushrooms contain every essential amino acid, and are as complete a protein as any animal flesh or excretion. I was still eating eggs for a while after I started eating mushrooms, and even after I began getting mushrooms for free. I noticed not liking that I was participating in the exploitation of animals (I’d been reducing my participation in it at a subconcious level for a time) but I was obviously paying for it every time I spent my own money on it. And ‘dairy’ and ‘eggs’ are the same as the rest. So any participation was close enough to full participation, and implied the correctness of the frame, which is low key ‘you/it/she low-key deserved what happened’, and it’s voluntary. There’s not even a health claim to be made for it. What I hope for you and mushrooms I want something for you, too. I write these things for me, sure, and even younger versions of me. I wonder where else around colorado these mushrooms grow. I suspect they may grow widely. and where besides colorado. If they grow widely like this, how many other people could slip a little of the shackles of human exploitation (capitalism) and entitlement to the exploitation of animals. and why not both-ish? at least the animals, but if one escapes a bit of capitalism, please certainly also have already freed other beings from your direct exploitation. (consuming individual animals, her excretions) what I hope for you and scooters This easy, whimsical, “oh look at me finding little fruits in the fairy circles as I prance about barefoot” energy is enabled entirely by a very particular vehicle. A scooter. 🛵 My scooter is very similar to this particular vehicle: HHH 200cc scooter Here’s a normal-enough vibe. I see something that looks like maybe mushrooms somewhere, pull the scooter up right next to them. I can ride my scooter directly to the mushroom, put the kickstand down, place the mushrooms inside the bag I store in my scooter bucket anyway, as if a basket of them had been dumped on the ground, hop back on the scooter, and take home the extra 2-20 lbs in the container I’d had in my scooter already. I can ride around anywhere easily with it, and never have to park it far from my destination. I love bicycles, truly, and yet I find denver to be too damn dangerous to use with a bicycle. Because of the entitlement of drivers, and ‘bad’/irresponsible/obedient-to-random-rules-from-supremacists road design, margins of safety and comfort just don’t quite work for me, getting around on a bicycle. I resent that, though. I loved the time of my life that I was using my bike a lot. And as soon as I got my first moped, I never rode that bike again. I’ll have another bike some day, and i’ll ride it, probably/maybe even around Denver, in some limited situations. But not at night, not if I needed to carry stuff, not if i’ll have to deal with cars/car traffic very much. buying scooters There’s been nice innovations in scooters in the USA recently! I got my scooter for $3200 in 2022 from a company based in Taiwan named Sym. Now in 2026 I’ve seen the same vehicle at the shop, also new, for $4400. On the other side of the strait of Taiwan are some quality manufacturers. One could get a similar version of the vehicle I have for $1600. It’ll show up in a week on a wood pallet, and all it needs is the front tire attached, and the handlebars attached. A friend got this scooter, it was super easy to put together. It costs more on HHH’s website directly, delivery is included. Amazon has it $400 cheaper, with a $400 delivery fee. Same either way. I was shocked at how easy the whole “buy a scooter off a website and assemble it” process was. Next time I’m getting a scooter, that’s what I’m going to do. To get my current scooter in the older way, I had to travel to a dealer in one vehicle, get dropped off, then drive the new other vehicle home. But having a brand new scooter dropped off at your house? amazing. And so cheap. It comes in a wood crate and uses metric bolts. I think most of the bolts on the crate (and handlebars) needed a 10mm socket and the front tire used a 17mm socket. A metric socket set like this is all one needs to do all the maintenance it’ll need, too. 2 Long ago I wrote a thing about scooters, since they’ve had such an impact on me, of course, how could I not, and then I could refer other folks to that page. I need to do a part 2. Any 125cc scooter from HHH also is great. One friend of mine has a 170cc scooter from them (the tank 200, obtained via facebook marketplace) and another friend has a 150 that is also lovely, obtained directly from HHH. The 150 size scooters have a 125cc engine, the 200 size scooters have a 170 cc engine. I don’t know why this is how it is. So, cheers to that. One of them gets to use the scooter now instead of an e-bike. One of them uses it instead of a regular car. Both are thrilled with the improvements. and if we all find it to be this way, maybe you will too. reducing car domination and capitalism and animal exploitation all at the same time? A scooter feels like an escape from car domination, and a way to obtain many interesting experiences (and to obtain instant free, ready-to-consume food). Foraging mushrooms feels like decapitalizing a certain portion of my food, and thus my life. Capitalism is so exploitative and coercive. How nice to reduce it’s footprint in my life. Speaking of exploitation and coercion… I cannot help think that people (me, I am people) could eat free mushrooms and replace any part of their diet that was animal flesh with mushrooms. (or tofu, or chickpeas, or store bought mushrooms, it doesn’t have to be foraged mushrooms obv), and in doing so doing escape participation in yet another exploitative system. I liked escaping capitalism via foraging, even when I was still participating in entitlement to animal exploitation. Now that I’ve Even without mushrooms, though, I would want for the same end result. The abundance of free mushrooms seems like a cool point to pass through on a stance towards the non-exploitation of animals, and a lesser exploitation of human animals (self and others). Resources The Light Eaters The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Foraging Mushrooms from Cheesman Park (part 1) Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility Footnotes after reading a book about moss I began carrying a pocket magnifying glass and guess what? the outside is even more interesting to me now. ↩ When I got my first scooter, and at first on my second scooter, I’d let the scooter dealer do the oil changes. Now I do them myself, for the same reason I cut my own hair. It’s so convenient to do it when I want, where I want, and I’m good/good enough at it. Sometimes I can do it in 10 minutes using a plastic container I fetch from my own trashcan. It takes exactly one container of oil (it’s like 957mil or something) and I pour the discard oil back into that same now-empty container, and drop the waste oil off at a mechanics shop when convenient. It took a while and was not as easy the first few times I did it as it is now. The only cost is a container of 10w-30 or 10w-40 oil which is usually $8 or so. And I began doing the transmission oil myself too, and belt and rollers. None of it felt trivial the first time I did it, but now I’m much better at it, and can do it in a pretty low-mess, clean, fast-enough way. I feel very independent and cost-effective, having a car-like vehicle that can go 55 mph, can carry multiple people, can carry stuff, but has a 1.5 gallon gas tank, weighs only 240 lbs, and I can do all of/most of the maintenance myself, as someone who doesn’t give a shit about cars and has always disliked dealing with stuff like that. I will do the brake pads myself for the first soon, too. There’s many youtube videos about how to do anything, and the vehicle is so simple even ‘big’ car maintenance tasks are simple with the scooter. ↩

Fun and other necessities, revisited

Laetitia@Work #105

My move from fractional work to full-time employment!

After a two-year absence from running a digital publication, namely Minimalissimo, I’m returning with a new project. Just when I thought I was out... Okay, no Pacino impressions. I definitely needed that break from curation and probably also from the constraints of minimalism for that matter. Over the past few years I’ve focused a lot on making digital tools and the odd experimental physical object. The latter still interests me hugely, and I’m casually working on a design for FFF, which I’ll cover in greater detail another time. Yet I became pretty disillusioned with the former: digital tooling in the age of AI. The sheer pace of development, replicas, slop, and hype just killed my enthusiasm for building. And I thought, “What do I actually enjoy doing?” The short and simple answer to that was “curation”. The longer and more complex answer is building a respectable publication that features journalistic deep dives, meaningful conversations, and tasteful curation. All presented and exhibited in a way that makes you appreciate the web experience over any social media feed or RSS reader. My new project is called MOUTHPRINT, which I’m building with my cofounder George Kroustallis, aka Minorstep. Together, our approach is to look closely at visual culture across art, fashion, and product design, tracing the people, processes, and choices behind the work. We’ll be publishing case files, which might sound a bit odd, but what the hell. These will examine individual projects through research and conversations with the people behind them. Ultimately, it’s about acknowledging and recording the many people who contributed to these projects and helped shape them. Alongside that, we’ll be publishing exhibitions that bring works together around a theme, making connections across disciplines and time. I’m under no illusions about how difficult it is to build a publication from the ground up. We’re totally up against it, but the web is a big place, we’re locked in, and we want to be heard. I’d now like to invite you to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest developments ahead of our official launch. We’d love to have you along for the ride. → mouthprint.com