Mushrooms and fireflies and food! Oh my!

Last week my husband Erich and I spent a marvelous two and a half days of mushroom hunting, firefly watching and enjoying fabulous meals which constituted "The Gourmet Symbiosis Event of Mushroom Expert Arif Towns Alonso and Lic. Chef David Jahnke." The event, limited to 8 people, took place on the private Rancho Calixto in the mountainous region near the Magical town of Amealco de Bonfil, about 85 miles from San Miguel.  The area is gorgeous and reminded us a tiny bit of Switzerland with the forested hills and chalet-style homes.  (Click on photos for larger ones)

The ranch is owned by a lovely gentleman named Clemente who is committed to maintaining the area in as natural a condition as possible. Most of his land is a sanctuary and will never be developed, and he does not allow any non-native species there. He and his staff work very hard to preserve the forests, and he even has a herd of endangered native white-tailed deer. As the herd expands, he sends some of them to other ranches where they will be protected from hunters. We were pleased to view them quite closely as they were being fed.

The ranch is also a sanctuary for fireflies which light up for about an hour for only a few days during the mating season in July. We went for a hike in the dark and were able to see a lot of the camera-elusive little creatures. No video despite my efforts. 

But the purpose of the trip was mushroom hunting and dining. Arif Towns Alonso knows everything about mushrooms and supplies many local restaurants and stores with wild ones collected from different states in Mexico. He showed us samples of many of the edible varieties from the area, but he also showed us the toxic ones, and let us look through his reference books. To our eyes, they looked much too similar, so despite the very informative instruction, we will never try picking them on our own.  (Arif leads mushroom tours through the season.  Contact information for the people and places mentioned here will be at the end of the post.)

Samples, reference books and Arif

Good ones

Good ones

Bad ones

We made two hikes looking for mushrooms and greatly enjoyed the experience even though we did not find an enormous number of them since we were near the beginning of the season. We found more than enough for Chef David to incorporate into our meals. On our second night at the ranch, he delighted us with a terrific "demonstration" dinner where he showed us how to make each dish, all of them cooked over a wood fire and and most of them involving mushrooms. He started off with a delicious mushroom soup and then made Flammkuchen with mushrooms, a type of German pizza.  Then we had mushroom tempura with a light, crunchy coating, Wagyu beef meatballs with broccoli and cauliflower followed by Wagyu burgers topped with béarnaise sauce.  Although we were stuffed, we made room for a Flan Napolitano for dessert. Dinner on the first night was also excellent as were the breakfasts and lunches, all prepared by David.  

David describing mushrooms

How to slice mushroom

Soup on wood stove

Flammkuchen in wood fire oven

On the second day, we had the afternoon free so we went to the nearby town of Amealco de Bonfil and visited the market and a store famous for various kinds of honey.  We planned to visit the doll museum, but it is closed on Wednesdays. The town is known for its dolls, so I picked out a pretty one to buy. Our touring was cut a bit short due to an unbelievably loud thunderstorm and downpour which sent us scurrying into a café on the edge of the central square called El Kiosco where Arturo, the manager with a lovely voice, sang to us when the electricity went off. He turned a potentially boring episode into a fun experience. 

Arturo singing for us

My doll

All in all, an excellent adventure.

Contact information:

Chef David Jahnke

david.jahnke@gmail.com  https://www.sanmigueldeallendecookingclasses.com/

cooking classes in person and online.  Over 250 free YouTube videos: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClJQ_s_1zXFw9N_EdXS95Cw/videos

Arif Towns Alonso

Mushroom tours.  https://www.facebook.com/simbiosissma

WhatsApp: 52 442 110 4306‬.     simbiosissanmiguel@gmail.com

Rancho Calixto 

https://www.facebook.com/RanchoCalixtoAmealco/?fref=ts

52-448-111-1290.  ranchocalixto@gmail.com

Cabins and camping. Firefly tours are available during the season.

The main road to the ranch, where Google Maps and your GPS will direct you, is under construction and probably will be for quite some time.  We hired a taxi in Amealco to guide us along the alternative route.  Well worth it for only 150 pesos.

View from our cabin living room

Cabin tucked into the woods

Kitchen