Morel Values

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," serving savory suppers since the seventies! I'm Chef Annie. Are you interested in hearing tonight's specials?

For appetizer, we have Morels Baked in Cream.

We're also offering our signature Corn Crabmeat Soup.

Our salad tonight is Winter Fruit Salad with Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing. Of course all of our salad dressings are made from scratch.

Tonight's entree of choice is Roast Loin of Venison with a juniper berry and white onion reduction, served on a bed of fresh baby spinach tossed with goat cheese and Tuscan olive oil.

Got that? Don't forget to leave room for Lemon Verbena Cake.

Okay, if almost all of this sounds like dressed-up hillbilly food, you're absolutely correct. And you're just dying for the recipes, aren't you? You were wondering what to do with that deer you ran over last week.

All of the above (with the exception of the fresh baby spinach bit) come from a brand-new cookbook called I've Got to Have That Recipe! It's a collection of homestyle recipes from distinctly rural and ruggedly Appalachian Allegany County, Maryland.

You can own a copy of this magnificent and quite original cookbook for just $12.00. Just click "Save Terrapin Run" in my sidebar, and you'll find your way to an order form.

For about the last two years, my magickal quest has been to help the Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County preserve the rural character of the county. This rural character is steeped in morel values. It deserves to be taken seriously.

What threatens the morel values of Allegany County is developers. One wants to build a full-sized town of 11,000 people where there's nothing now but ... morels. How im-morel is that?

This new town would be called Terrapin Run, after the tiny little dry branch creek that the 4400 housing units would destroy. Because of course 11,000 people are gonna have to go to the bathroom. When they flush, the water has to go somewhere. That somewhere is going to be Terrapin Run, a tributary (however small) of the Potomac.

This could be devastating for the morels of Allegany County. And if you think that doesn't matter to you, well. You've never had morels to begin with.

The Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County have to pay a lawyer to fight the big city developer who wants to build the town. Have you noticed that lawyers don't come cheap? Even high-minded, well-meaning ones?

In short, please buy a cookbook to Save Terrapin Run.

You won't find any recipes for morels on this site. As for morals, I'll tend my own, and you tend yours. If you want to let your furniture get stained, that's fine with me.

FROM ANNE

PLEASE HELP SAVE TERRAPIN RUN