Days
Hours
Mins
FRIENDS OF FUNGI FORAGING: FALL WEEKEND RETREAT
September 05 - September 07, 2025
John Michelotti
Aubrey Carter
Erwin Karl
Gabriela D’Elia
Join the Catskill Fungi team for a weekend of fun, wonderment and enlightenment as we delve into the forests of Menla, and engage the fungal residents there. Take a hands-on approach to learn how to identify common fungi in the forest. Through using your senses, you will be acquainted with multiple species and confirm your IDs. Learn to sustainably harvest mushrooms in the forest, how to clean them, cook them, and eat them. We will also dehydrate mushrooms to make teas and medicinal tinctures. This ID focused course is for any beginner or Friends of Fungi alumni to take a deeper dive into befriending and foraging fungi.
Participants will learn to:
-Identify common edible and medicinal mushrooms
-Cook and eat wild and cultivated mushrooms
-Preserve and store mushrooms
-Make mushroom tinctures and extracts with medicinal mushrooms
Finish the weekend with:
-Confidence in identifying some edible, wild mushrooms
-Foraging hand lens and Mushroom journal
-Medicinal mushroom tinctures
-Dehydrated mushrooms
-Deeper connection with fungi, nature, self, and friends
Many people say "I would never trust myself to eat mushrooms from the forest." This is a healthy fear and an important first step to safe foraging. John didn't trust himself until someone showed him which mushrooms were edible, and he was confident he could tell them apart from their lookalikes. At some point we all learned to recognize and name different animals. Now we would never mistake a deer for an elk. One mushroom at a time, we learn to identify different species of fungi. This weekend get to know your common, easy, edible wild mushrooms. Learn to look, smell, and feel the differences between some obvious edible mushrooms that have few or no poisonous lookalikes.
There is no greater act that connects you directly to nature and the land than confidently finding something in the forest, identifying it as nourishing food or medicine, working with that organism to prepare it, and ingesting the nutrients it has to offer you. We are happy to help show you how to trust yourself and your resources to get to know, forage, identify, and prepare easy, edible and medicinal mushrooms.
This is Friends of Fungi's 11th session, and we are looking forward to another wonderful weekend of foraging!
Catskill Fungi professional guides, presenters, and private-walk leaders: Aubrey Carter, Erwin Karl, Gabriela D'Elia, and John Michelotti
Schedule:
Friday, September 5
Saturday, September 6
Sunday, September 7
ABOUT THE TEACHERs
John Michelotti
John Michelotti is the founder of Catskill Fungi which empowers people with fungi through outdoor educational classes, cultivation courses, mushroom art, and mushroom health extracts. John is a past president of the Mid-Hudson Mycological Association (MHMA) where he co-founded th...
Aubrey Carter
Aubrey graduated from Indiana University in 2016 with a BS in Biology. He has worked at several different ecological institutions in and around the NYC area, including the Central Park Conservancy, the Westchester Land Trust, the Stamford Land Conservation Trust, and Sleepy Cat F...
Erwin Karl
Erwin Karl is a farmer, mycologist and educator who has led walks and workshops for Catskill Fungi and Mid Hudson Mycological Association. He serves as site manager at the CycleX farm in Andes, NY where he has been involved in building maintenance, construction and agriculture fo...
Gabriela D’Elia
Gabriela D’Elia is the Director of the Fungal Diversity Survey (FunDiS), VP for Mushroom Society of Utah, Project Leader for FunDiS Local Project Northern Utah Funga, and founder of her company Moon Mushrooms, which focuses on holistic mycology, crafting tiny batch tinctures, a...
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