Farmhouse “fung shui” ales made with candy cap mushrooms, luminous mushroom necklaces by Fungi Lighting, wildly stylish wild mushroom pants, double mushroom graffiti on two surfaces happening live, epic mushroom cooking demos, profound mushroom panels, life-affirming mushroom lectures, and even “self-growing” Myco-Niac mushroom architecture.
As thousands descended on Roaring Camp’s old-growth redwoods in Felton for the second ever Santa Cruz Mountain Mushroom Festival last weekend, there was a ton of mycelium with which to…network.
Here appears a turbo spore-gasbord of highlights, with intel on how you can tap in without waiting for next year’s festival to return.
Bookie’s Pizza (1315 Water St, Santa Cruz) was there slinging sublime maitake Buffalo “wings” and maitake-tree oyster mushroom pizzas with porcini white sauce, its first-ever event appearance, and an indicator that pizzaiola Todd Parker and company now do catering and private shindigs. (The must-try wings are a fixture at its brick and mortar inside Sante Adarius.)
Shockwave Food Truck rolled out shiitake melts, portobello shawarma and wild-mushroom-infused burgers, and circulated word they do a 9am-1pm Monday-Tuesday brunch with Cali burritos, spanakopita burritos and breakfast sandwiches at SW’s Scotts Valley commercial kitchen (100 Enterprise Way, Suite G100), which has a food court. (They also do Wednesday lunch at the kitchen and regular appearances at Shanty Shack 4-9pm Wednesday 2-9pm Sunday and Steel Bonnet 5-8pm Thursday too.)
The Grove Cafe and Bakery (6249 Highway 9, Felton) booth dropped its candy cap caramel snickerdoodles, mushrooms skewers, mushroom brioche tarts and adaptogen mushroom golden milk lattés on festival goers, while chef-owner Jessica Yarr dropped knowledge in the demo pavilion. As she prepped candy cap cookies—from scratch to freshly baked in under an hour—her kitchen coaching included “You can’t make great food without great ingredients,” “Don’t skimp [financially] on your butter,” and “There’s a myth that baking is super rigid and demands precision. Don’t believe it. Once you understand why things are in what you’re making, there’s a lot of room for adjustments.”
Event organizers Far West Fungi capped things with dishes served regularly at their Westside shop-cafe (224 Laurel St Suite A101, Santa Cruz), including lobster mushroom chowder, lion’s mane nuggets and candy cap cookies (and also sold fresh mushrooms at $5 a box, or 50% less than most retailers).
A final venue-centric bonus: Redwood Mountain Faire circulated flyers listing the 26 bands for three Roaring Camp stages May 31-June 1 to benefit area nonprofits, redwoodmountainfaire.ticketspice.com/redwood-mountain-faire.
DRAFTING WELL
Private Press Brewing (in the former Equinox Cellars spot, 334 C Ingalls St., Santa Cruz) makes its official grand opening Saturday, May 10, with the taproom open noon-6pm Saturdays and Sundays going forward, starring Brad Clark’s barrel-aged barleywines and imperial stouts. Clark helped author the benevolent buyout of Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing across the way, pairing his acumen for uncommon beer-making with the savvy of Sante Adarius’ Adair Paterno. Now his flavor playground provides awesome infill for the burgeoning Westside slate of tasting rooms, cafes and restaurants, privatepressbrewing.com.
FOOD-FREE NOURISHMENT
From the Feed Your Body and Soul File, two items: 1) Pitch-In All-Santa Cruz County Cleanup Day gathers 9am-noon Sunday, May 10. “Make your Mother proud Mother’s Day Weekend,” Pitch In reminds locals, pitchinsantacruz.org. 2) All levels of yoga students are invited to Mountain Parks Foundation’s Yoga In Nature Series 10:45–11:45 am on May 9, 16, 23 and 30, featuring breathing techniques and flexibility-plus postures, meet at Picnic Area 3 in the day use area of Henry Cowell. Bring a mat and learn more mountainparks.org. BTW: These events came to me via an e-newsletter I’ve shouted out here before, Environteers Santa Cruz, look em up and keep things looking up, environteers.org.
REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS
Santa Cruz Mountain trailblazer Ken Burnap, the legendary winemaker-restaurateur with the “P NOIR” vanity plates, and the founder of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, migrated to the vineyard in the sky last week at age 94…Bargetto Winery (3535 N Main St., Soquel) continues rocking Thursday live music and wine 6-8pm, no reservations needed, no outside food, no cover charge, all the wine by-the-glass, all the Taquizas Gabriel taco truck flavor, bargetto.com…A closing epiphany, courtesy r/Showerthoughts on Reddit: “Since our bodies are made up of the food we eat, when you go grocery shopping you are carrying around bags of future-you.”
