Where does one go

(from TRUCK, a l. s. ?)

Son Lee stimulated me, with his interest in nutrition being seriously learned at UW- Madison, to go through my stack of books and find what I have on Dr. Andrew Weil, MD. I found three books, and put them aside for the next time Lee is home.

Now, since I have enough life in me to commence another tome (apres TRUCK, a love story), I'm re-reading Weil's THE MARRIAGE OF THE SUN AND MOON, written in 1980 and updated in 1998. I've gotten through two chapters and am into the 3rd. The first was about coffee as a popular drug and certainly a common infusion; the second about the mango as an exquisite and exotic fruit that Dr. Weil profoundly savored, while a paid research fellow in South America in the late 70's. , post-med school.

The 3rd chapter is on Weil's beloved subject: mushrooms, also studied during that S. American research while on his extended trip. (As it were.)

Pictured above is the late Sunny Rupnow's pencil drawing of one species from the many kinds of mushrooms she collected over the years. (This drawing was used on Sunny's memorial rite program.) I spent some cherished hours with Sunny and her husband Norman, searching various 'shroom-friendly woods. Non-hallucinogenic species - Chantrelles, Shaggy Manes, Morels, Puff Balls, and the like were covetously picked.

Sunny would hurry home and sautee them, in butter or wine. Or, she would string them on thread and dry them across her kitchen walls, for flavoring soups, etc. Sunny was able to enter any woods and emerge with all sorts of delectables. Roots, herbs, edible wildflowers, and even a snake once, that she cooked for us. She was a good witch, of sorts. A conjuror.

Once, a neighboring farmer had thrown a dispatched and fat pine snake over his barbed wife fence. Sunny seeing that, said - in her soft and courteous way - "You aren't going to throw away that perfectly good snake, are you?"

The farmer said it was there for the hawks. "If you want it, take it!"

Sunny took it to a nearby kitchen and carved it up. And, in the manner of Sunny's culinary magic, it did taste "just like chicken!" (Norman at her memorial told about that incident during eulogy moments, as a summary of Sunny's life.)

While thinking of the Weil books and Leland, I remembered an old picture on my computer of Lee surveying a Yellow Lady Slipper orchid growing wild in the Ridges Sanctuary near Baileys Harbor, WI. His interest in the natural manifestations of that protected, boreal forest is well-recalled today. It is a subject - The Ridges,and the boreal phenomena - that I recommend to any reader. Look it up on the web. Or, here:

http://www.ridgesanctuary.org/wildflowers.htm


As you read the above, you can see how my synaptics work. One thing leads to another................