If you're in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and itching to get out of the city, it's a nice ride on the F train to Coney Island. From Queens or beyond, be prepared for a lengthy subway ride. Despite the distance it was worth the trip, if only for people watching, walking through the flea market next door, or watching riders on The Slingshot get shot up in the air. Imagine a reverse bungee cord ride. No thank you!
What will I remember from my first trip to Coney Island? Luna Park with its amusement rides and many games and fried food stalls, typical of any amusement park you might visit in the U.S. Anticipating unhealthy options and succumbing to fried stuff at Luna Park, we actually ate in Koreatown before hopping on the F train. However I secretly wondered what a deep fried Oreo would taste like.
There on Coney Island we said goodbye to summer by taking a walk on the boardwalk and pier where locals were throwing in lines. I saw bait and lines, but no actual fish being caught.
I'll miss summer but autumn is one of my favorite seasons anyway. Besides fall fashion, I like smelling the crispness in the air, the leaf peeping, and the mushrooming! With the rains this past summer, most notably from Hurricane Irene and then Tropical Storm Lee, I predict a good crop of mushrooms this month. Even in a city as large, sprawling and dense as NYC, mushrooms are growing for those who know where to look. If only I could predict where to find them...
In France we lived in the countryside, at the bottom of the Juras, so greenspace was plentiful. I only had to walk into my backyard or the meadows across the street to gather mushrooms, pick chestnuts, etc. But in NYC?? Apparently yes!
This week I joined a local mushroom club to expand my "mushrooming" knowledge and to meet local experts and like-minded people. At one of the club's events, I met Gary Lincoff, author of the Audubon field guide to North American mushrooms. With the Audubon guide and Roger Phillip's Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America, I'm hoping to successfully identify some mushrooms this weekend in the city's wild spaces.
If you have an interest in mushrooms and/or foraging, I'd love to hear from you.
Foraging.com
Steve Brill The Wildman's Walks
Fungus Fest in NJ on September 25th
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