Mushrooms!
Went mushrooming on the weekend with friends. We were looking for chanterelles but all our regular spots had none; probably because it was too early in the season, and a lack of rain in general.
In exploring for new places we discovered a number of pullball mushrooms. We didn't have any identification guides in the field, but having a vague recollection that Australia has no dangerous true puffballs we collected all we could find, with the hopes that we'd succeed in a positive ID back at base and find them edible.
To our great joy, we identified them as gem studded puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum), using independent references in both English and Russian, with no communication between researchers.
After slicing each one carefully to ensure we hadn't accidently collected any immature destorying angels accidentally (a potential lethal mistake), we hesitantly fried and consumed our first puffball. They're absolutely delcious fried in a little olive oil. We sauted the rest in a wok, which produced good results, but not as good as the individually fried slices.
I think next time pan-frying with a sprinkle of garlic salt would produce a most acceptable dish.
