I'll probably be giving it a try at some point. My mother is always jonesin' for seafood and while she likes the food at Stowe's, unless the weather is perfect for sitting outside (not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too breezy, etc etc...) she doesn't like it.

So I've had to hump up I-95 more often than not. I've had so-so meals at both of the L&J and also at Lenny's Indian Head.

The thing is, even if this place ain't spiffin' awesome, at least it's in town. And I can stop by Ikea and pick up a HOLMØPZ or a VARKBLARGÜNDOOF or something.

Do NOT freeze them. Do NOT put them in plastic. Never store any mushrooms (unless they are cooked or dried) in plastic. It makes them rot.

Store them in the fridge in a little paper bag or wax paper.

Candy & Dee, Thanks for the suggestions. I will look into both of them.

Thanks to all for the input. I've found so many honey mushrooms now, that I have cooked them at least a half dozen times and even put a bunch in the freezer. Not a hint of tummy trouble. Their flavor is wonderful and the slippery texture that some dismiss as slimy, I find sensual and elegant.

I've had them in soups (mushroom barley) and sandwiches (thin-sliced roast pork loin and sour cherry preserves on a dark rye). I've cooked them with eggs(folded into scrambled), put them on pizza and with pasta. For the pasta I also sauteed vidalia onions and some garlic in olive oil along with the mushrooms and added some water to take advantage of the mushrooms' okra -like thickening properties. And I stirred in a bit of a fresh goat cheese to make a sauce. It was very good. Not so much as a tummy rumble.

I've since tasted a few other species without problems: gypsys and hedgehogs and elm oyster mushrooms. And by tasted, i mean I only found one or two of these species.

I've put away a goodly amount of chicken-of-the-woods (soups, pasta, reduced with onions and wines on (slightly) cheesy polenta & asparagus topped with pine nuts) and an unreasonable quantity of hen-of-the-woods AKA maitake. I've had "Entoloma abortivum" on pasta and pizza and YES, they do taste like shrimp. And I've had lots of glorious puffballs, puffballs that make me moan with joy. I've frozen plenty of all of the above except for the puffballs which I can't resist. I don't do much with them except toss them in olive oil & lemon juice then fry 'em up until the outsides are just a bit browned and the inside is just this side of custard. Ooooooh soooo goood!

The only gastro issue I've had has been with chicken-of-the-woods which has, oh, an effect not unlike prunes, but not severe.

I go slow with the new kinds, and I understand that not everyone can eat all kinds.

I'm super careful with the ID. I've done taxonomy in other Kingdoms/Domain w/ various phyla. I get how weird and wonderful biology is.

It's not for everyone. One has to know what risks you are willing to take. Me? The thought of eating a fast food burger anywhere, scares the s*** out of me. When you look at the numbers, I'm willing to wager, food poisoning from eating out at restaurants has killed far more people than are poisoned by wild mushrooms.

I can find plenty of field guides to wild mushrooms, but I haven't found a really good cookbook for them.

They are so diverse in flavor and texture and require different treatments. Some are delicate and some are decidedly sturdy. Some need pretreatment for edibility, some need only to be cooked. I'd love to have a chef's take on the whole thing.

Many of the existing recipes I am seeing are very heavy treatments with cream and butter and sherry, the mushrooms made into soups and stews.

I want to know what you can do with these delicacies when you get really clever.

Some friends and I had homemade pizza with maitakes and they were wonderful, all smoke and earth! No wonder they're called the dancing mushroom.

Is there a really good cookbook out there? If not, could some chef do one that isn't all hearty casserole comfort food, some recipes a little more sophisticated than the covered-dish supper affairs I'm seeing?

I get mine at Great Wall too. I'm not enough of an expert to suggest brands. I do know i like the seed ones better than the pineapple. Haven't tried the egg ones yet. Thanks for the reminder that it is that time of year again.

I'm starting to go on wild mushroom forays with a local mycological society. Oh what fun! And here I am looking at the loot from my first outing, a big old basket full of honey mushrooms "Armillaria mellea".

I know, even though these mushrooms were identified by an expert, that I should only have a small taste today and see how they sit. Even edible mushrooms give some folks a belly ache. I know to cook them thoroughly. And I know that one should resist the temptation to make an entire meal of them, as they are a bit challenging to digest, so I'm thinking I might have some pasta with them, or rice. I found an interesting recipe online for honey mushroom pierogi and I might make those.

I plan to continue going on forays and hopefully will be finding tasty boletes and hen of the woods and chanterelles and oh you bet next spring I will be on the morel trail.

But just now, I have a lot of these honey mushrooms.

Have any of you chowhounders got a good recipe for honey mushrooms?

Tune in next week, when we argue about the definition of "Spotted Dick".

Back in the day, the food at Finn's was way better than the food at the Oar. Perhaps that has changed.

The bakery is Aldo's. Back in the day, when Block was newly-beloved of the cruising yacht crowd, Aldo would load up a Boston Whaler and take his baked goods out to the boats anchored in the harbor. He sang. He also sold the New York Times. And his rhubarbs pies and eclairs were as mediocre as can be, but something about the way they were delivered and the fact that you ate them in the cockpit of a boat swinging around on its anchor, made them taste pretty good.

If you live close to Modern you also live close to Wooster Square. You got out of towners and you want to give them the full treatment?

Just sayin'!

I know other thoughts will come to mind, but for some reason I'm thinking of three spots up the river, Tow in Derby that might do it for you (but check their menus) Smoke & Bones BBQ, which is very informal but very tasty, and Roseland Apizza. But also maybe Riverview BBQ in Seymour, which is as lovely an outdoor dining experience as you could wish for. It is on the water, the Housatonic, and you sit outside and the landscape will make your heart ache. But BYOB.

You could always really show them real New Haven by taking them to Sally's or bar or Pepe's or the Spot for pizza. Clam for the seafood lovers and everything else for everyone else.

Jones Family Farms in Shelton, and more more more:

http://www.pickyourown.org/CT.htm

Chiming in late here (as per usual) I'll second Primo deli. I've had a couple hot sit down meals there and it was all delicious. The chicharrónes are to die for, and I image if you eat too much of them, they could kill ya. But it would be a delicious death.

Another thing that needs mentioning is the Bridgewater General Store. The candy is delicious and when you want a nice gift you have a go-to now. But even better is the ice cream. OMG, the ice cream is dreamy. And the fruit flavors are from local fruit and the maple walnut is made with local maple syrup. It's damn fine stuff.

Now, it you don't mind a bit of a drive, when you are in the mood for an outing: Salisbury!

SWEET
WILLIAM'S
BAKERY

OMFG

I'm sure it is all good, but the first time I found the place it was on a side road off the street and I was doing survey work such that I had to look in people's gardens. And I smelled this smell. And I followed my nose. And I walked into the place and I interrupted the conversations and I practically shouted: WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

They told me it was almond shortbread. They told me it wasn't coming out of the oven for another fifteen minutes. I told them I'd wait. With my baffled coworker who had just found me from when I had wandered away, helplessly hypnotized by the aroma. I didn't even shoot her a side glance, and by then the poor woman had spent enough months out in the field with me under some pretty interesting conditions, adventurous even. And she knew the look in my eyes I get with different kinds of stress. She knew I was very, very serious. She waited and she bought a bag of gingersnaps and those were lovely and good (we shared, we shared) but that shortbread. It was what shortbread must be like in heaven and it was almost good enough to make my skeptical heart believe.

Oh that shortbread. They do other kinds of shortbread and they'll all really good, but that almond one is my own personal religion.

And in the summer, at least as of two years ago, they locally source homemade ice cream and they make ice cream sandwiches with that shortbread. I had lemon shortbread with raspberry ice cream. I'm just gonna lie here on the floor for a minute and quiver thinking about it. Oh, and another time I had a ginger one with both components ginger variants.

Yep. You got some good eating up that way.

I quite like Tacuba in Branford. The food is tasty, the drinks are too and the decor is really fun.

Usually, in the discussion of New Haven pizza, you have two serious camps: Pepe's and Sally's. Many who love Sally's, also love bar on Crown Street. Sally's is my favorite pie in the whole world, but as their hours are limited and you have to be committed to standing on line, usually on the sidewalk outside, I find myself at bar more often than Sally's.

Pepe's is also damn good pizza, especially if you like white clam pies.

I really do NOT like Modern. I love bar and Sally's and like Pepe's and the Spot and Zuppardi's out in the st'avens and Roseland up in the valley, so I am not inflexible. I just don't like grease. I don't like a pie that arrives at the table pitted with grease craters. I don't like toppings so aggressively fatty that I hardly notice the texture of the crust. I don't like that East Rock Yale attitude that is convinced that they have the best thing going because they are too scared or too lazy to range as far as, GASP, Wooster Square.

I have friends who like Modern, so I get dragged there every three years or so. Every time I regret it. One piece will leave me with an upset stomach. There is often an aftertaste.

Here is the memory that best sums up Modern to me: I was with a friend who was picking up a pizza to go. An employee was sweeping the floor in front of the open ovens. He had a wide grubby push broom that was unlovely in the way brooms that sweep the floor of such places can be. As I watched, in full view so I can only assume it was a regular practice, he finished with the floor and used the same broom to sweep out the ovens, the very surface of the ovens where the pizzas are cooked.

When you order pizza in New Haven, it is usually served to you on a big rectangular baking pan, like an industrial cookie sheet with a rolled lip. It has NOT been baked on this pan. The pies are shifted into the ovens on big wooden paddles and they rest directly on that baking floor which this guy used his filthy broom to "clean".

PIzza ovens get pretty hot. No doubt pathogens are destroyed. But the ovens do not get hot enough to vaporize floor sweepings. I've run kilns that get three times as hot as pizza oven with dried plant material pressed into slabs of clay, an art project someone was doing. After a firing that went all night, the seeds and stems were pretty well fired, but they were not vaporized. If there is dog crap on the floor of a pizza oven, it might get sterilized, it might get carbonized, but it does not go away. Ugh. And I wondered what was going on in that kitchen out of sight.

Now that might have been a one time deal, and also it was years ago, so the whole staff and the kitchen policies might have rolled around.

Even so, I've never had a pizza from Modern that was good enough to represent what is best about New Haven pizza.

Soft shell lobsters? You mean they keep them until they molt and then use them before that new exoskeleton hardens up, just like with soft-shelled crabs? THIS is blowing my mind.

That's a pity you left. It's a family-run operation and this is their first restaurant. They bend over backwards when I have been there. Sorry you missed out.

Gosh BiscuitBoy, I do not even remember the details. I was VERY hungry. I remember the pork was perfect, rich but thin-sliced. I remember the roll was lovely and the crust crisp. I remember the whole thing being a synergistic symphony in my mouth. I remember ordered a second one to go. That, likely, was consumed very quickly.

Next time I will order two, right up front. so I have time to examine one while I gobble down the other.

I'll have to go back and do some more research.

Nah, just do things other than eating with them.

Personally, I find Hamden a little challenging for sit down eating. But Sapori D'Italia on Circular Drive is a stellar little deli. They have a bakery. They have a garden in the back. You can get squash-blossom fritters and bruscetta and then take it out back at sit at a picnic table and gaze out over the tomato, squash, eggplant, parsley and basil plants as you eat. On a fair day, it's a very agreeable spot for a picnic and the food is yummy. I've also been known to put together a picnic from the goodies available at Thyme & Season market. I'm partial to the inari, but that is in the same case with the bread pudding and I can't even let myself LOOK at that bread pudding. Just my eyeballs glancing over it can ruin a diet. But there are good fresh soups and salads and then it is off to Sleeping Giant Park to enjoy the out of doors.

Ah yes, H.L. Wilfreds, from back when bars were for kids.

We baby boomers miss our glory days.

LOL, I misread and thought you were dining with a Pastafarian teen! If she had indeed been touched by the FSM's noodly appendage I would have suggested any seafood place where the servers dress as pirates.

Why lookie here on Craigslist:

http://newhaven.craigslist.org/fbh/31...

They are hiring.

My son had to run an errand out that way, so I suggested we try TD Vietnamese Palace for lunch.

We liked our food very much. We had roast pork Banh Mi and bun and lemonade (fresh made with lemon juice, soda water & sugar, served with spoon in glass so you could stir more vigorously to dissolve that last little pyramid of crystals in the bottom of the glass if you wanted more sweet. I didn't, it was perfect.) And everything went down the hatch pronto. The menu was small. But I was told that iit will be expanded as time goes by.

I think it makes sense for them to go slow. There is no tradition of eating Vietnamese food in CT, so many people do not know anything about it. These folks are going to have to educate their clientele, if they want to make this business work. And already it is a bit of a struggle, because people come in and place an order and pretty much flip out when they have to wait because it is being made from scratch. Yeah, they really have to educate those customers, if they want to make a go of it. Or else they'll have to do some compromises on the prep.

So hey, go out there and eat. This is very tasty food.

I just wish they were in New Haven!

:(

Good to hear about Lenny & Joe's. My mom will be thrilled. It has been frustrating to be dragged out to Branford every time Mom got a craving for swordfish or lobster roll.

I haven't eaten at Leon's for decades and decades. Not since the sexual harassment that went down in that kitchen was made public. I was all ICK and I did not want to eat food made by people like that.

And speaking of changes in New Haven, has anyone tried Tomatillo?

Yeah.

Sigh.

It's gonna hit the fan so hard.

You might find some of the same vendors at other farmers markets. They tend to travel in order to have enough business to keep going.

Here's a link to the state site:

http://www.ct.gov/doag/cwp/view.asp?a=3260&q=398996

Some interesting reading if you download the regulation pdf.
http://www.ct.gov/doag/cwp/view.asp?a...

The NYT food writers should read CH.

I figure the shoreline is any place along the shore.

I was born in New Haven. My family didn't have a beach house, we had a boat. So summers were mostly spent in Milford. So that meant Paul's. It is gone now, alas. But they hung in there for a good long while.

I don't like burgers, so that isn't an issue to me.

But Shady Glen makes a damn good ice cream soda. And there are too few places these days that know how to make an ice cream soda, let alone a good one.