Sunday Lunch and Ink Cap breakfast snack


Lunch with Gabriele & Jos
Our neighbours in Betty’s Bay and dear friends from Hamburg – our swallows – have flown back to Germany for the season. Every time we drive past their house we think of the lovely times we shall have again when they come back into their nest. But driving past we also watch their lawn for ink caps to appear. And there they were again, a few only but just enough for a quick breakfast snack – quick and snack, because we were expecting guests for lunch: Gabriele, Jos and his niece Naomi from Holland who is doing a prac at Media 24.
 
Coprinus comatus, the shaggy ink cap, lawyer's wig, or shaggy mane, a common fungus often seen growing on lawns.

Colleen picked the fungi from our neighbours lawn, cut them up, braised them in butter with one finely chopped shallot, seasoned them with salt and pepper and there we had a delicious breakfast snack on a piece of toasted rye bread – one of the simplest and very finest things you can imagine – and readied ourselves for the lunch guests. As it turned out, Naomi was not feeling too well; she settled down on the cushions in the sun while we again had a simple but magic feast, thanks to our lovely company around the table.
 
Colleen presented:
Caponata which she had prepared the day before; black eyed beans, called peas, dressed in olive oil and fresh herbs; fried and marinated pumpkin slices, hassle back potatoes and a tomato salad with some pesto and crème fraîche as asides.
 
 
Definitely very delicious.
 
Winter is on its way.
A school we saw, 
50 or more, 
returning home, 
dolphins,
cruising through the bay.
Winter is on its way
with a misty vane.
And ragged bits of summer, blue.
So calm the sea,
as ice so plane.
Winter is on its way. 
 
With love from
Colleen & Walter
Betty’s Bay May 16, 2011