Foraging for Food

We had some of Kevin's colleagues over for dinner on Sunday night, and I took the opportunity to get advice about things to see and do while my mom and friends are here. We were advised that the 17th of May (Norway's Independence Day) is best seen in Oslo, so I have booked a hotel room there. We are also going to take them to Jostedal National Park to see the glacier, to the fjords, to the Oslo museums, to Lillehammer...I really want this to be the perfect vacation for them, I want to show them everything that is special and beautiful about Norway. Sadly, I already know that my mom is going to be sorely disappointed. She keeps talking about seeing hedgehogs and red spotted mushrooms on her visit. I also would love to see a hedgehog, but in the 8 1/2 months that we have lived here, I haven't seen a single one. I have seen the beautiful red mushrooms with the white spots in our yard, and they look just like the toadstools in fairy tale books. I asked our dinner guests if the mushrooms would pop up by the middle of May and was told no, they don't appear until autumn. And then I was quickly told, "But don't eat them, they are highly poisonous!" This is the fourth time I have been told by someone to not eat the spotted mushrooms. Do I really look like the kind of person who, while out for a walk in the woods, would randomly start eating things from the forest floor? I am much too scared of bugs to even pluck something out of the earth, let alone pop it in my mouth! I freely admit that common sense isn't always my forte. I have run with scissors, I have talked to strangers, and I have even eaten a container of yogurt a day past its expiration date. But I have never foraged for dinner under a log!

(That being said, I am totally excited to go mushroom hunting this fall. But obviously I will take anything I find to the mushroom checking station. And of course I will make Kevin do the actual picking and carrying--again, I'm really scared of accidentally touching a bug! I'm sure he can't wait to be my mushroom slave!)