National Honeybee Day

I just thought that you might like to know that this upcoming Saturday is National Honeybee Day.

Did you know that?

You should go celebrate at Native Nurseries with the Apalachee Beekeepers Association

Native Nurseries is a great place to get native plants as well as locally grown herb plants and vegetable plants.  They also sell non GMO seeds.  The staff there is very knowledgible and helpful.

The ABA has been very helpful with my quest to become a beekeeper.

It isn't going that well though.  You can learn a lot but the hive is a complex system and there are constant threats there.  I may just end up purchasing local honey from all of our fabulous beekeepers in the area.

A Stop by Dakotah Winery

When we travel we love to stop at Florida wineries to sample and purchase their wines.  Of course the closest winery to Tallahassee is the Monticello Winery but when we travel we like to use this site to find wineries along the way.  There are also green road signs with grapes on them to help you find the wineries.  We have come across a few surprises that way.

When we travel to Tampa to visit relatives we like to stop by the Dakotah Winery in Chiefland.

They have a very pretty facility

The inside has a gift shop and a wine tasting bar.  They have free tastings of their wines and muscadine grape juice.  Some of their wines are from grape juice shipped in from California but they also make muscadine wines that are from local grapes as well as a blueberry wine that also often comes from a local source.  If buying wines from locally grown sources is important to you, be sure to ask questions during the tasting.  We bought a bottle of their Carlos, their Blush and their Noble wine and an extra bottle as a hostess gift.

The back patio overshadows a koi pond where the kids can feed the fish and grapes hang overhead

There is also an adorable pavilion with tables

If you are ever traveling through Chiefland on Highway 19  be sure to stop by!

Chanterelles Everywhere!

About a month ago my husband brought home a bag of chanterelles that he had won in the raffle at the North Florida Brewers League meeting.  I knew that some of the home brewers were foodies and locavores and I was really excited about this special treat (maybe even more excited than my husband was about winning all the beer that came with it).  So I set about looking up information on chanterelles and how to cook them.  We ate them with chopped onions in a creamy sauce served with orzo pasta.

About a week later I was so excited when we found these in the yard:

They looked just like the ones my husband brought home.  But I had to be sure and look them up.  There are two species that are very similar.  One is the Jack-o-lantern (Omphalotus sp.) and the other is the false chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca).  I needed to make sure that the ones I had found were true chanterelles.  This website was really helpful.  I think the fact that I am a biologist also helps me with identification.  It is definitely important to make sure you know what you are doing before collecting and eating wild mushrooms. 

Pretty soon it became apparent that chanterelles are everywhere in Tallahassee right now.  Two of my facebook friends mentioned finding them in their yards.  I started seeing them all over the neighborhood.  They were in neighbors yards though so I wasn't about to trespass and steal their gourmet mushrooms.

However, we also have lots of woodsy green space in this neighborhood.  Look what I found this morning while on a walk!

This time we ate them with chicken and rice.  I read that they should be paired with a dry red wine (such as Pinot Noir) but all we had was a semi-sweet Noble from Dakotah Winery and we liked that pairing.

Chanterelles are in season in the east from July through September.  Patches of mushrooms can be reharvested about every three weeks during this time, if you are careful not to disturb the soil too much.  I look forward to trying more chanterelle recipes.