Hey folks. It’s the holiday season and we’d like to share a few things on our wish list,

Hey folks. It’s the holiday season and we’d like to share a few things on our wish list, you know, just in case you were wondering. We’re also inviting you to come get gifts from us at the 1st Annual Georgia Avenue Winter Fest Hosted by Artomatic, this Saturday, December 5th. Here are a few of our picks for the mushroom lover who has everything! For the Forager: The national pastime of mushroom nerds is foraging for mushrooms, usually in the woods but sometimes in fields and urban areas. When stalking some of the more illusive mushrooms, a dogged hunter could spend hours, days even, belly down in leaf litter waiting for fungi to reveal themselves. When they finally do appear, it’s good to be prepared. Mushroom Hunting Knife - $19 - $49Mushroom hunters often carry a mushroom knife for harvesting and examination. Though many knives work for this purpose mushroom knives are the standard in the field. They often have long wooden handles, with a small curved blades that fold down for easy storage. A belt clip is always a nice feature since you’ll want to keep it from getting lost. In addition, some knives come with a little brush which is useful when uncovering dirty mushrooms. Even fancier ones have a compass for finding your way out of the woods with your haul. You can find our favorite knives here and here.Mushroom Collecting Basket - $150 - $300If you’ve ever heard Ella Fitzgererald sing A’Tisket A’Tasket about a long-lost beloved basket you might think maybe Ella’s basket had some shrooms in it. She seems pretty upset about it. We feel you Ella.Whether you’re recovering from a lost basket episode or just looking to level up in the foraging world, consider a dedicated foraging basket. It is our sincere wish that someday we’ll acquire a sweetgrass basket for foraging because these baskets in particular hold a lot of meaning for us. Growing up in Charleston and the Sea Islands of South Carolina, I was introduced to and grew to love the rich history of basket-making among African American Gullah and Geechee people. This history deserves a whole library of scholarship but let’s just say this: Sweetgrass Basket making is a cultural practice that fuses art and environmental stewardship of African descendant peoples. The lines between “folk” and “fine” art are blurred and upended. They were never legitimate to begin with. The actual work is painstaking and a basket the size of the one pictured could take dozens of hours. The skill is taught to kids at a young age and passed down along with the history of the family and the culture. Families and individuals cultivate signature styles and elevate the art constantly. Sweetgrass and bullrush, the sea-grasses that most baskets are made of, have also been found to have a lot of beneficial properties and to be keys to the survival of coastal ecosystems. Wanna guess who’s been trying to make sure these species stay viable? I’ll wait… Hear Vera Manigault, veteran basket maker and Gullah Historian, talk about the history of basket-making among her people. Watch her demonstrate cultivation techniques and talk about how real estate development has endangered her wait of life. When you buy a sweetgrass basket, it’s important to buy directly from the artist, not a dealer or middle-person. You get better service and get to know the provenance of the basket and the name of its maker. Basket-makers will often guarantee the basket for up to 100 years and will make repairs in case of damage. These are our favorite basket makers on the internet:Delores Jones of SweetgrassBasketryAngela Nowel of MonetnFor the MycoPhage :Easy Make Ramen Maker - $49.25Do we really need to explain? Just as our love for mushrooms knows no bounds, our love for all dishes that respectfully feature mushroom is the same. What better way to accompany hand harvested or farmer’s market snagged fungi and on a bed of tasty hand-made noodles!! Go forth, make ramen!For the Fairy:Mushroom Chess Set - $125Was this the tuffet? I think it was. Play this classic and complex game with mushroom guides on your side. Available from the ErinLes House Etsy StoreFor the FIY-er (Fungi It Yourself) - $15 - $30Give the gift of Grow Your Own. Mushroom kits make great gifts because they produce a beautiful tablescape that you can eat! The can be uber fancy like this one from Williams-Sonoma’s “Agrarian Collection.” Tres posh!Or they can be down to earth like the ones we’ll have this Saturday. Either way, they are pretty cool!Happy Shopping and, while this list is merely a dalliance, we made sure that, were any of these things to land on our doorstep, we’d make good use of them. :) -- source link

More pics about