Mycology

We're making breads in baking class and everything is very yeasty. We're even making sourdough starter from water, flour and squished grapes. Yum. My partner, sweet little thing that she is, named ours "Monostat". Other names in the class are "Mr. Bubbles", "Yeasty Boys", "Lucille DoughBall" ... you know. Cute names. Chef wouldn't let us call ours Monostat, so officially it's "The Vampire YeaStat". But we call it Monostat for short. Yup. Fun Times! Anyway. So with all of the rain, and yeast on my mind, I walked out with the compost this morning and saw a huge fungus growing next to the gas meter. I'm not a mycologist by any means (although I do likes me some fungus on my pizza -- mmmmm), but I think this might be Suillus Cavipes - which has "mediocre" edibility. Except it was growing under a gas meter, not a larch (and for some weird reason, I now have a Monty Python sketch running through my mind). Whatever it is, I'm still not eating it. But it is kind of cute, in a fungus-y sort of way.