Peter Miller

I can read almost perfectly. I can walk into Proust and be more pleased in a moment than had I won a thousand awards. I can hear a pop song, "Midnight Train to Georgia," and tell my son, it must have been wonderful to write the lyrics -- "I would rather live in his world than live without him in mine."

You live where mushrooms live -- use them, they are a brilliance only a fool should ignore. If the porcini are $50/pound, buy $10 worth, it is a fortune. Same for morels, or chanterelles. Or matsutake. Sauté them on the side, in a small sauté pan, with parsley and garlic and such. Few pizza places will use such mushrooms, for they are expensive, fragile and, for the most part, their brilliance is lost on the audience.

It is the fresh broccoli and the spring garlic, on one hand, green and proud. And the muddy, earthy, sweaty morels from the damaged spring wetlands, on the other.

Wash up continuously, not just after the meal. And use a small bowl.