Magic mushrooms

Also contains bonking, a book to weep over and the perfect chocolate loaf.

Tokoroa, 2004. I’ve been dispatched to the Kinleith pulp and paper mill, where employees are on strike. There’s me, another young reporter and the paper’s diminutive chief photographer. Things are tense, and I realise now that they probably sent the three of us because we’re so non-threatening. I leave the young reporter interviewing the workers and cross the line to go inside to interview the boss. The workers are not impressed by this. “We call him The Mushroom,” one grizzled older man tells me. “Because he sits in the dark and they feed him shit.”

Mushrooms - pic by Christine Siracusa for Unsplash

What does this anecdote have to do with mushrooms? Nothing, really, except it’s one of several memories that bounce back into my head every time I pile mushrooms into a paper bag at the shops. We’ve been eating a lot of mushrooms lately, so I’ve been thinking about them quite a lot. The more glamorous story involves a cooking lesson at The Ritz in Paris, where a fellow participant (a polished Parisian) got told off by the chef-teacher for peeling the mushrooms we were preparing for stock. But there’s something earthy about the Kinleith memory that always makes me smile.

I’d love to be one of those people who goes fungi foraging in the Town Belt and comes back with a bag of fairytale porcini, but I don’t seem to have the knack. Luckily, ordinary old buttons from the supermarket are still pretty good when you treat ‘em right.

Roasted ‘shroom spaghetti with lemon and spring onions

This is great for those times when you can’t really be bothered with a big production and want to eat something fast and fabulous. I buy cheap ‘use now’ bunches of spring onions at the Sunday vegetable market, but if they elude you then you could use a finely chopped brown onion, or a leek. Similarly, I use ordinary button mushrooms but if you have fancy or foraged ones they’ll work too.

Lastly, if you don’t like pasta, these mushrooms are great over rice, or on toast, or eaten by themselves straight off the oven tray.

This is enough for four people - I’m sure you can work out the maths to increase or decrease amounts if you need more or less.

600g button mushrooms, wiped and halved

1 bunch (6-ish) spring onions, ends trimmed, finely sliced

1/2 cup (125ml) extra virgin olive oil

400-450g spaghetti

Salt and pepper

1 lemon, finely zested and juiced

A handful of parsley, finely chopped

Parmesan or Grana Padano, to serve (optional)

Turn the oven to 180C fan bake. Put the mushrooms, spring onions and two-thirds of the olive oil into a large bowl (top tip: use the one you’ll be serving from to save on the dishes). Mix well, then tip onto a large baking tray. Season well with salt and pepper and put in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Prepare the pasta while the mushrooms are roasting. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. When it’s bubbling merrily, add a generous spoonful of salt and the spaghetti. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until al dente. Scoop out a small cupful of the pasta water, then drain the pasta.

Show time: put the pasta and mushrooms in the large bowl you used earlier, making sure you get all the juices from the baking tray. Add the lemon juice and zest, and the remaining olive oil. Slosh in a splash or two of the pasta water and toss energetically so all the ingredients can get acquainted. Add the parsley and toss again. Take to the table and serve.

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Good Things

Nigella’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

I photocopied the recipe for this lush loaf out of Nigella Lawson’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess in 2001 and tucked it into a bulging notebook of ‘things to make one day’. After finally making it for the first time last weekend, I think it could be the best chocolate cake I’ve ever made. If you’ve never made it and don’t have the book, you can find the recipe here. Note the measurements on this version of the recipe are US - for metric measurements I can advise you that it’s 225g butter, 375g sugar, 100g chocolate, 200g plain flour and 250ml boiling water.

‘Life’s short, we’re never going to be this hot again!’

I don’t think I could love any TV show more than season two of Rivals, based on the Jilly Cooper novel of the same name. It’s so deliciously bonkers (not to mention full of bonking) that it’s the perfect antidote to doom and gloom. The dinner party scene in episode two is particularly brilliant, but there are plenty of other gems. Watching it is a participatory experience - a bit like panto - as it’s hard not to shout, scream and groan as the action progresses.

Heart the Lover

I adored Lily King’s ‘Writers and Lovers’ so much that when I finished it I read it all over again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. I feel exactly the same about Heart the Lover, which exists as a sort of prequel (but makes sense as a standalone book). I cried copiously through the last third and could just about cry now just thinking about it. Highly recommended.

Happy last week of May to you and yours,

Lucy