Don’t Stir My Mushrooms!

  Several years ago, I was preparing some portabella mushrooms for a salad topping. I love me some portabella mushrooms and cooking them is a labor of love. After slicing the mushrooms as thin as possible, I fry them in grape seed oil on medium high heat. The mushrooms shrink pretty quickly, so you have to keep the process going. I want the end result to be a crisp bacon-like treasure. You can’t crowd them, or they will never brown. So my process goes like this - I work from left to right in the pan. As the portabellas begin to shrink, I move them to the right, adding new ones on the left. This way, I always know which ones need to come off next, all ready for a shot of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Often, I start with four or five cups of fresh mushrooms, ending up with a cup or so of the final product. It takes a lot of time, patience and focus, but I’m here to tell you, it is worth it!

 So, there I was well into the process when Chris shows up to help in the kitchen. I turned my back for a moment - I swear it was only a moment – and there he was, stirring my mushrooms. Alarms went off in my head, and I imagined myself screaming or running away. (Ok, that might be an exaggeration) but, honestly, I was in a momentary shock. I don’t remember my exact words, but I think I said something like, “Did you just stir my mushrooms?” He must have seen a look on my face that told him he’d made an egregious error. Though I was very perturbed, our friendship survived this little episode. We still work very well together in the kitchen and I love him now more than ever. So, you must know, if you ever hear someone say something about stirring my mushrooms, you’ll understand the significance of the saying.

 Some years later, another friend was in the kitchen with me. Now this guy was the kind of guy who’d unapologetically “stir my mushrooms” and never give it another thought. I was making pasta, and I wanted to experiment by adding a mixture of greens and herbs to the pasta water at the last minute or so of cooking. He told me it was a terrible idea and that I was just boiling salad. I’d been thinking the rich oceanic pasta water would enrich the flavor of the greens, which, in turn, would deepen the flavor of the pasta. I wanted to finish the dish with some olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and lots of black pepper before tossing it all onto a pile of shrimp. Something distracted me for a moment, a phone call, maybe. When I turned around, he had the pasta over the sink, draining it. I was so offended he’d taken over my dish like that. He had the gall to grin at me. “Uh-oh… I just stirred your mushrooms, didn’t I?”

 I’m sad to say our friendship did not last. We didn’t part ways over spilt pasta water, but this simple disregard for my wishes was symptomatic of many problems we’d had over the years. Every one of us is going to have our mushrooms stirred now and then, and sometimes our best friend will do the stirring. Hopefully, the relationship can survive the travails. I am so thankful for my chosen family. I’m grateful for relationships so strong and safe they can withstand a stir or two, and I wish for you is that your life is full of friendships so deep and true they can survive the most intense stirring of your own particular mushrooms!