September is one of our favorite months! The beginning of “circle-every-oak” season! Here in the northeast we are gifted with bountiful fungal fruitings of chicken of the woods and hen of the woods if you know where to look! We started our month up in the Adirondack Mountains where we found Black Trumpets, Hedgehogs, and lots of puffballs!
Then we jumped on a plane and flew to Florida to help people impacted by Cluster Headaches learn how to grow their own natural medicines by demonstrating a few simple home mushroom cultivation tips!
Ecovative is moving into the spawn and substrate business and we have been asked to help test out their products! They’ll be trialing several different bag and substrate combinations in the coming few weeks and we’ll be fruiting them to see how they do!
If you aren’t familiar with Ecovative (and MyForest MyBacon) check them out here:
Ecovative started as a sustainably produced biodegradable packaging company using mycelium and has grown into so much more!
Avery was invited to present at the Northeast Mycological Federation’s annual Ristich Foray. He gave a cultivation 101 talk as well as an update on psilocybin advocacy in New York.
The Collar City Mushrooms Fungi Book Club continues to meet and discuss mushroom themed or inspired works. This month we finished up the Book Annihilation by Jeff VanDermeer.
Our friends at Indian Ladder Farms kicked off their fall season and invited a myriad of small business vendors to create a marketplace on their grounds while people pick apples, pet animals, eat donuts, and drink frosty cold beverages. We will be spending a few more days at the market through October.
Avery was invited back to the Albany Library Arbor Hill Branch for another Mushroom Talk. Look forward to the spring for the next one!
One of our largest customers, Mazzone Hospitality, hosted a gathering for 150 visiting executive chefs and served our mushrooms! Chef Dave Chaiken sauteed them on an incredible wood heated outdoor oven-top pan structure at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga.
We are at a do-or-die moment for us at 333 2nd Avenue. We have hustled and grown and created community here in Lansingburgh over the last 3 years and our landlord now wants to sell the building, either to us, or to someone else. We want to buy it and expand here, but in order to do so, we need YOUR help! Please donate to our go-fund-me phase 2 fundraiser, or share it with your network of people if you can’t! Every little bit helps!
We were awarded a Community Business Investment Grant awarded by the City Of Troy in order to help us with renovations and equipment purchases. We are so grateful for the support of our community leaders!
https://www.troyny.gov/1505/Community-Business-Investment-Grant
Through the generosity of one of our partners we were able to sponsor the New York State Metal Detecting Club’s annual hunt again! Food, drinks, and paper goods were provided in our name for all the hunters!
Broome Animal Sanctuary held their annual vegan festival and we served up some BBQ mushroom sliders, cookies, and spicy mushroom jerky! Despite being a bit rainy, it was a lot of fun!
Psilocybin Corner:
Our September New Yorkers for Mental Health Alternatives meeting featured Brooklyn Psychedelic Society’s Executive Director,Colin Pugh! He walked us through his vision of a psychedelic future! You can watch the whole meeting here:
NYMHA September 2023 Meeting Colin Pugh from BPS Presentation
The Undersecretary of Health for the VA Hospital system kicked off a new podcast. Their first episode is on Psychedelic Assisted Therapy. The VA system is looking at rolling out P.A.T. across the country as these medicines become more accepted. Listen in here:
https://newhorizonspodcast.transistor.fm/
We are starting a working cohort temporarily called the Capital Region Medical Professionals for Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (new name forthcoming) that will be focusing on gathering all the local medical professionals and brainstorming ways to roll out trials in the Capital Region. If you are interested in joining in send us a message and let us know how you’d fit! (We have Doctors, Nurses, Hospice Chaplains, Pharmacists, and Psychologists so far)
Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 10th.
Coming Up:
We will be vending at Indian Ladder Farms for their Fall Market on Saturday 10/14 so our farm store will be closed. We will also most likely be closed Saturday and Sunday Oct 21 – 22.
Here’s a snapshot of what we have going on in October, read on for more details.
Thursday, October 5th: 5pm Metal in the Moshroom featuring Laquerhead, Don’t Play, Beasteliaphiliac, and Flatwounds.
Saturday, October 7th: Photographer Eric-Jon Tasker Show featuring Inch and Sky Furrows
Eric-jon Tasker is an artist of multiple disciplines: painting, photography, knitting. Raised in Connecticut, he studied acting in Boston at Emerson college and painting at Mass Art. The 14 years after college he had a career as a recording artist, touring the country with his original compositions in his band Parker House & Theory and solo as Eric-jon. Having settled in Albany, NY, Tasker has returned to his love of oil painting.
Eric-jon’s current works explore formative moments from his own childhood, innocence and influence of culture against contemporary and classical paradigms of beauty blah blah blah. Check out those colors, though, huh? Many of the works are achieved using thousands of pastel pencil strokes much in the way of the impressionists, blending in the eye when viewed from a distance.
Featuring Food by Wizard Burger
Sunday, October 8th, 2pm: Second Sunday Poetry and Prose with hosts Nancy Klepsch and Dan Wilcox.
Tuesday, October 10th: 7pm: NYMHA Meeting featuring Dr Sunil Kumar Aggarwal
Dr. Aggarwal is a physician and medical geographer. He is a
Board-Certified Fellow of both the American Academy of Physical Medicine
and Rehabilitation and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine, where he was named a Top 20 Emerging Leader. He is Past Chair
of the Integrative Medicine Special Interest Group and an inaugural
member of the Safe Use in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Forum at the
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is a Voluntary
Clinical Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the UW School
of Medicine, an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Geography in the UW
College of Arts and Sciences, an Affiliate Clinical Faculty Member at
Bastyr University School of Naturopathic Medicine, and a Faculty Member
of the National Family Medicine Residency. He serves on the Editorial
Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute’s PDQ Cancer CAM
information summary on cannabis and as an Associate Member of the New
York Academy of Medicine and the Humboldt Institute for
Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research. He maintains a clinical practice
at AIMS and serves as a Hospice Physician and On-Call Palliative
Physician for MultiCare Health System. He has been qualified as an
expert in cannabis and psilocybin medical and religious use in county,
state, and federal courts. He has completed two ketamine-assisted
psychotherapy trainings with the Ketamine Training Center and Orenda
Institute. He has completed MAPS MDMA-Assisted Therapy, 100 hours of
training (Part A-D), certified. He is petitioning for Right to Try
access to psilocybin for patients.
Dr. Aggarwal received a B.S. in chemistry, B.A. in philosophy, and a
minor in religious studies from UC Berkeley. He completed the
NIH-supported Medical Scientist Training Program at the UW School of
Medicine where he received a Ph.D. in medical geography and a Doctorate
of Medicine (M.D.) with a Pathway Certification in Global Health. He was
supported in part by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He completed
his Medicine Internship in Internal Medicine at Virginia Mason Medical
Center in Seattle, Residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at
the New York University Medical Center, and Clinical Fellowship in
Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the National Institutes of
Health-Clinical Center Pain and Palliative Care Service. See more of Dr.
Aggarwal’s work on his website: http://www.cannabinologist.org/
Sunday, October 15th: 2pm Naomi Bindman and Mickey Carter Suggested $10 donation
Naomi Bindman’s articles, essays, and poetry have appeared in anthologies and journals including VTDigger, Mothering, So to Speak, Friends Journal, Consilience, and Import Sky. She was a finalist in the 2023 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest, and won the 2023 Creative Nonfiction Award from Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose. Naomi has received grants from the Vermont Arts Council, taught memoir-writing workshops funded by the Vermont Humanities Council, and is on the faculty of the Vermont State Colleges. Her memoir, You’re the Words I Sing tells the story of Naomi’s journey back to life performing the songs of her daughter, Ellen, who lost her life in a car crash at seventeen.
Read more about Naomi and her daughter here:
Mickey Carter has performed, taught, and studied drums and percussion all over New England. She plays a wide variety of instruments and styles, from classical percussion to jazz and rock drum set, to hand drums from around the world. Mickey brings her knowledge of all these rhythms and techniques to every project. She counts among her mentors some of the most accomplished international drum and percussion educators and performers, including Dom Famularo, Memo Acevedo, John Beck, Cassio Duarte, and Glen Velez. Mickey currently resides in northern Maine. She is thrilled to play with Naomi Bindman again.
Tuesday, October 17th: 6pm – 8:30pm: Cooking with Mushrooms at Capital Cooks $79.00
Amy and Avery will be demonstrating 3 of our recipes at the Capital Cooks classroom kitchen in Albany. For more details and to register head over to Capital Cooks website:
https://capitalcooksny.com/shop-classes/ols/products/xn--1017-cooking-with-mushrooms–hands-on-u77x
Saturday, November 4th: A Mushroom Experience with Collar City Mushrooms and Friends at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Hall of the Pines . This event has completely sold out!
Saturday, November 11th: Trojan Photographer Susan Jadlos’ show, ‘A Touch of Home,’ featuring the musical stylings of LSDaniel.
A few Words from Susan:
I grew up in Troy and it’s been my home for most of my life.
There’s a vibrant “Can Do” attitude that seems to be part of the DNA of the
people who were born here. Troy is beautiful and always evolving. What’s
neat is folks with dreams and aspirations can come to Troy, join our
community and grow their dreams surrounded by like minded people.
I’m lucky to be part of the community. As a child, the orange brick walls of
my alley in South Troy fueled my imagination and continue to be an integral
part of my foundation. Photography is like magic to me. My photographs
and stitched together brickwork are dedicated to the brickmakers and
bricklayers who helped build the walls here in Troy, NY and continue to
inspire me.
Joy, exuberance and beauty in the commonplace and lifting the spirit are
what I hope my work brings to you.
Collar City Mushrooms 