Last night we had the richest dinner. It is spring here, deep blue skies and fingers of leaves grasping for birth. In my travels of the day, tilling the earth for myriad hopeful gardens, I had gathered a nice bunch of morels - a delightful mushroom that grows wild for only a week or three each year here.

My daughter Elizabeth (11), had gathered a nice sized bowl of tender young dandelion greens - in spite of the enthusiastic help of her little brother Jake (5).
I gently tossed the morels into an old black iron skillet, and while they gently simmered in a generous lump of fresh butter, Elizabeth made a nice vinaigrette in an old jelly jar. Jake toasted old bread in the toaster and pestered her to cut them into croutons.
As the morels slowly cooked down and released their water, I whipped a bunch of eggs from a neighbor's coop until their large deep golden yolks matched the daffodils in the mason jar that was our centerpiece. When the mushrooms were soft, I added the eggs and gently scrambled them, making sure each mushroom was coated, and that they were distributed evenly throughout.

Served with mugs of cold raw milk, the yellow eggs and their large dark chunks of morel stood in brilliant contrast to the deep green of our simple salad. Savoring those contrasts - bitter, sweet and sour, mellow and musky, we wiped our plates clean with chunky slices of bread cut from a big round loaf that I had made that morning. For dessert, more of the same bread slathered with tart elderberry jelly, a trade from another neighbor.

Outside, the creek whispered a soft background music to our quiet chattering, flowing past our little cabin in the woods, as we flow through our lives, only occasionally pausing to reflect the richness of our simplicity.


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