Mushrooms in the Orchard

After a few guided mushroom hunts in the wild, I still had yet to find anything worth eating. A week or so after a heavy rainfall led to a proliferation of mushrooms in our future Walnut orchard, including one that I thought was so absurdly large it warranted a photo. After casually sharing the photo with a friend, he was confident that it was a Porcini and said it was likely edible. So, I scurried back out to the orchard late at night for another look, deciding to bring it inside for inspection. It passed every test and weighed in at three and a half pounds! After slicing a few for a late night snack, I threw the remainder in the dehydrator and now we have dozens of slices of home grown dried porcinis.