Torn between worlds when picking the right sauce before the dinner is served? Mushroom sauce will help finding the answer!

Does the Dalai Lama likes mushroom sauce?

When the Dalai Lama was asked about what surprised him most about humanity he said:

“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

These words must be familiar to anyone driving a cabriolet at the age of around 50 pursuing the time of their life lost in the blind arrogance of youthfulness.

Not like many people at the end of their teenage years were able to legally buy a cabriolet and have a 20 years younger girlfriend. So basically, there is no such thing as midlife crisis, only people adhering to the advice of the Dalai Lama and enjoy the present that was not achievable for them any other time in their life.

Are mushrooms torn between worlds?

Maybe he referred of living our whole life like that from the very beginning and don’t worry about buying cabriolets and having twenty years younger chicks?

Given the spiritual nature of him that may be a probability but then how can we synchronize those highly idealistic expectations to our modern life? It’s easy not to fancy anything when someone is locked into a castle and all he does is meditating about clever sentences to be quoted.

Coming out and facing our modern life while renouncing our needs is like getting into a fast food restaurant with our family only to watch them licking their fingers, bite after bite.

Has there ever been a choice between worlds?

Luckily, as restaurants have solutions for most situations, life won’t let us down with our spiritual anguish. Unfortunately, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. But as we can have burger meat on keto and chips with salad when going vegan, we can get ourselves a nice coupe that covers the bald spot on our head without the need of a baseball cap.

The question is that which is the better. Giving up our dreams that modern life nursed into us so we can reach spiritual Valhalla or chasing our dreams leaving spiritual enlightening for those who have time for it. Or simply combine the two and see what can flourish from it?

What is fungus?

Probably these were the very thoughts of God at the time of creation. After creating the plants then had some fun creating the animals like the platypus, a passing thought as irritating as splinter in the hand couldn’t let him rest.

What if animals and plants were combined. So came the mushrooms or rather the kingdom of fungus which mushroom is a part of. Interestingly, fungus isn’t really a plant nor animal or a bit of both being stuck between the two kingdoms.

Are all mushrooms fungus?

As fungus can’t make their own food like plants from co2 and sunshine, they have to rely on their environment to get it from, like animals. Their moving abilities aren’t as spectacular as for example the cheetahs, but they do move. As the principal decomposers of the ecological systems, they can grow quite big too.

Having access to both worlds, it may come to no surprise that the kingdom of fungus is quite colorful. Much more diverse than we can judge it by the shops’ mushroom offerings. It is estimated that there are 2.2 and 3.8 million fungus species exist and only 120.000 are identified among them.

Within such chaotic system, we shouldn’t be surprised that the word mushroom is also not defined properly.

What are mushrooms exactly?

Mushrooms or toadstools are the fleshy spore bearing fruiting body of a fungus. So maybe it’s a bit like something between an apple or an egg. Given of course that it’s edible, as many mushrooms not just aren’t edible but toxic.

There are some fun ones too, like psilocybin that will not only help us find what to cook with our mushroom sauce but help us find the answers to questions that riddles our life, no matter at what age we are.

Ingredients

Basic

3 tablespoon / 50g Butter
1lb / 500g Mushroom (sliced)
3 shallots or ½ red onion (finely chopped)
7 oz / 200g Sour cream or cream
1 teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Black pepper

Advanced

3 tablespoon / 50g Butter
1lb / 500g Mushroom (sliced)
3 shallots or ½ red onion (finely chopped)
1 teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Black pepper
1 stem / ¼ teaspoon Thyme
2 cloves Garlic
½ cup / 125ml White wine
7oz / 200g Sour cream or cream

Overkill

1lb / 500g Mushroom
1 tablespoon / 15g Butter
2 shallots or ½ Red onion
1 teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Black pepper
1 stem / ¼ teaspoon Thyme
2 cloves Garlic (crushed)
1 tablespoon Parsley (chopped)
½ cup / 125ml White wine
½ cup / 125ml Chicken broth or water
7oz / 200g Sour cream or cream
¼ cup / 25g Parmesan (grated)
1 tablespoon Corn starch to thicken the sauce if desired

How to make mushroom sauce

Basic

Slice mushrooms.
Melt butter in a pan or simply use cooking oil.
Add the mushrooms, onion, salt and pepper.
Stir-fry on high heat (saute) until the mushrooms half in size and get a brown color. (Optional herbs like parsley can be added too.)
Stir in sour cream. Bring it to boil then let it sit a couple of minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Advanced

Melt butter in a saucepan then add sliced mushrooms, finely chopped onion, salt and pepper.
Saute until mushroom collapses to about half then add thyme and garlic.
Saute until garlic gets fragrant then add the wine.
Cook away at least half of the wine then add the sour cream.
Mix it well then bring it to boil. Let it sit a couple of minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Overkill

Melt butter in a saucepan then add sliced mushroom, finely chopped onion, salt and pepper.
Saute until mushroom collapses to about half then add thyme, garlic and parsley.
Saute until garlic gets fragrant then add the wine.
Cook away at least half of the wine then add the stock or water.
Mix in sour cream and the Parmesan cheese.
Let the cheese melt away. More cheese or a tablespoon of corn starch will thicken the sauce up if needed. Keep in mind that as the sauce cools the cheese will naturally make it thicker.