No one confessed to having a birthday, so no song was sung.

The secret handshaker was Jim Tudor who picked Harry Hudlow as best handshaker.

Alec Rosario announced that Chuck Hinkle was the winner of last week's contest. This weeks contest was given by Bonnie Godby.

Raffle winners were Ralph Green, Sheila Randall and Harry Hudlow.

PROGRAM: Dr. James Mattern, Growing Mushrooms, introduced by Jan Ermel

Dr. James Mattern shared with us his new passion for mushroom growing, including a sample of his hard-earned produce. Mushroom growing is apparently a hobby craft like gardening, except much more demanding in terms of equipment and methods. Mushrooms are like people; they breathe oxygen and respond to many environmental characteristics as we do; and there are thousands of varieties. Growing mushrooms is a multi-step process beginning with the accumulation of appropriate equipment. Included are a pressure cooker, 55-gallon drums, blowers, a ‘clean air’ space managed by a hepa-filter, and appropriate growing media. Growing mushrooms successfully requires an atmosphere void of airborne contaminants and bacteria. Very simplistically, the “mushroom” begins as spores delivered in a 20 cc syringe. A sugar water solution is prepared in the pressure cooker. The spores are added to a petri dish with the cooled water, and later transferred to a sterilized solution at 70 degrees, where it grows and expands for multiple generations. Then it’s transferred into canning jars to mature, before being transferred to the growing media in a barrel. Other meticulous fermentation-like steps are also included along the way and eventually, with proper light, humidity, air quality, hydration, and growing media, the crop will mature into edible delicacies. Growing mushrooms can be a time consuming, meticulous process, but the fruits of the hobby are apparently worth the effort for Dr. Mattern and fellow hobbyists, who are also hard-knock bio-chemistry wizards. There are also professional experts and suppliers available to help.

Commercial growers can “feed” the medicinal chemistry industry for making a variety of medical ingredients. To learn about all the environmental benefits of this sustainable crop, visit the Fungi Perfecti® web site, “… a family-owned, environmentally friendly company specializing in using mushrooms to improve the health of the planet and its people.”