By the time we finally made it to Death Cap’s home in my Equestria dreamscape the mare had calmed down enough that she was no longer too angry at Zecora.
 
Death Cap lived with her parents in a rather large cottage on the outskirts of Ponyville. Nestled amongst a grove of old oaks the thatched roof, half-timber 3 bedroom had been in the family for several generations. Along with the main house there was a barn and several outlying buildings. I was surprised to see several pigs around the barn.
 
“we keep them for truffle hunting. Ponies can find them by themselves, but pigs speed the process up quite a bit, and we use their manure in our garden.” Explained Ponyville’s up and coming mushroom hunter.
 
Her family had been hunting for mushrooms in this valley before there was even a Ponyville. In fact her family was one of the first to get an official charter from the palace in Canterlot and their mushrooms were found from the simplest family stew pot to Celestia’s own table.
 
While Ponyville was an important market the bulk of their harvesting went to Canterlot, but that was primarily for table/edible mushrooms. Throughout the realm demand for their other products remained strong. The various outlying buildings were specially built for the drying, organizing, storing and preserving the fruits of their efforts.
 
Her parents and her older brother were off on a business trip to Hoofington so the homestead was empty when we arrived. Upon her arrival the pigs, chickens, geese and the family dog immediately demanded their dinners. The next 40 minutes was spent feeding them. Then another 20 minutes was spread out the Fading Dream Mushrooms on wire racks and then covering them with dried moss.Then they were put in on shelves of dressed fieldstone down in the basement. With that accomplished we started preparation of our own meal. While we were feeding the chickens Death Cap had discovered a half-dozen eggs that she would use for dinner.
 
Since the stove was not lit. Death Cap decided it would be easier to and more fun to cook outside. So before we’d started feeding the animals she’d gotten a fire going in a quickly dug fire pit located near the house. Soon we had a good bed of glowing coals. The first thing Death Cap whipped up was a quick cherry crumble with cherries her family had canned last year. A crumble crust of flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground clove and a pinch of nutmeg covered the cherries. Once assembled she put everything a cast iron pot that she set into a special, recessed location in the fire pit that was dug for just this purposed. Buried with coals all around it she went about the rest of dinner preparations.
 
A grill rack with legs was set over the coals. In one corner she’d scrapped aside most of the glowing embers. Here she placed a small copper sauce pan; in it went butter, olive oil, fresh cloves of garlic that she crushed with a stone mortar and pestle along with garlic went a couple crushed black peppercorns, minced parsley, dried basil and oregano. To the mixture she added one mashed anchovy. Slowly the ingredients heated until the whole concoction was making a wonderful stink!
 
With that cooking away Death Cap took care of the next ingredient. Carefully unpacking them from the moss, she retrieved six Black Cloud mushrooms. Each one almost as big as grown ponies hoof. Carefully she removed the stems. She explained that the stems were rather tough to eat but possessed a most wondrous flavor and aroma. In fact some chefs preferred them to the whole mushroom when making sauces and stocks. Especially when dried. Those stems had an appointment with her families drying racks. With stems removed she carefully cleaned the caps and set them aside.
 
Next she took a partial loaf of Sourdough bread that she’d baked yesterday. Although a day old the bread was still very fresh. Obviously the breadbox had done its job. The mare cut six thick slices of the bread for the main meal and several extras for just toast. Next she sliced up six, thin slices of a mild jack-style cheese.
 
By this time the pot of oil, butter, garlic and herbs was all hot and bubbly. With a basting brush she brushed both sides of the giant mushroom caps and put them on the grill rack cap side up. Next placed the slices of bread on the grill. About this time the mushroom caps needed flipping. Once this was accomplished Death Cap carefully cracked an egg into each of the mushroom cap which now had curled around the edges creating a natural recess to hold the egg.
 
While the eggs were cooking she flipped the toasts. A couple minutes later the toast came off and got a brushing of the garlic herb and melted butter mixture.
 
The last step was Death Cap placing a slice of cheese on top of the mushroom and cooking egg mixture. When the cheese was melted she placed an egg, mushroom, and cheese packet on to a slice of garlic herb toast and served them.
 
After a hard day of stomping through the Everfree Forest they tasted so good! Of course one had to be careful if one wished to avoid getting hot egg yolk all over one’s hoofs, but that seemed to be half the enjoyment of eating them.
 
Along with the open face sandwiches, Death Cap brought out a couple bottles of pickled vegetables and some green and ripe olives that a relative in the south of Equestria had sent her family. We washed down the meal with bottles of saison style beer. As dinner was served Death Cap had put a pot of coffee on the fire. By the time we had finished the main meal the coffee was done and the cherry crumble was ready to eat. As the night settled on the land Zecora, Death Cap and I finished our day with bowls of cherry crumble with cream poured over them and mugs of coffee.
 
I stuck around for a bit to help with clean up and then said good night to the two mares. As I went to leave Death Cap passed a small but hefty coin purse. Inside was 20 bits payment for my services today. A very tidy sum of money for a days work. In spite of the dangers of the day it had been kind of fun!
 
But right now all I wanted was hot bath and then a nice soft bed with a couple mares to snuggle up with. Also I needed to finish packing for our trip to Ft. Trotterdale in a few days.
 
To be continued.
 
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