Fungus Fair Vendors - 2013

Please visit our 2013 Fungus Fair Vendors!

Vendors in Auditorium

• Penny Ice Creamery
• Bob Wynn

FFSC Store

Photo by Hugh Smith © 2008.

The Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz sells books, teeshirts and other mushroom related items to raise money for scholarships and educational programs.

Club members staffing the booth can help you find the latest posters, field guides, cookbooks, and children's books. And the new 2013 Fungus Fair teeshirt, which often sells out very quickly!

Please stop by and support the FFSC. Thanks to Toni Gillespie who organizes this booth.

Far West Fungi

Far West Fungi is a family-run farm certified organic by CCOF. John and Toby Garrone with the help of their four boys have been bringing cultivated exotic mushrooms to local farmers’ markets for 23 years. In 2004 the Garrones opened a mushroom shop in the Ferry Building Market Place. This is a seven-day a week shop featuring cultivated mushrooms, fresh and dried wild mushrooms, and fresh truffles and truffle products.

The Far West Fungi farm is located in Moss Landing situated on a bluff above the Pajaro River overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The cool ocean breeze contributes to the Garrone’s ability to grow mushrooms all year round. Though John is always experimenting with different mushroom varieties, they mainly grow Shiitake, Tree Oyster, King Trumpets, Lions Mane, Maitake and Reishi. These varieties are cultivated on pure natural hardwood sawdust enriched with organic rice bran nutrients.

Penny Ice Creamery

Penny Ice Creamery produces small batches of artisanal ice cream, sorbet and other treats. Their philosophy emphasizes using the region's best organically cultivated and wild fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs along with organic dairy, eggs, and sugar. Recent flavors include Black Pepper Cheesecake, Roasted Pumpkin Ice Cream, Malvasia Grape Sorbet, Ball Park Peanut Brittle, Maple Yogurt, Cookies 'n Cream, Tahitian Vanilla Bean, and Dark Chocolate Sorbet. They are located in downtown Santa Cruz and participate in many of the local Farmers Markets.

The International Mushroom Dye Institute (IMDI), was founded in 1985 by Miriam C. Rice who believed that people throughout the world would benefit from exploring the full spectrum of color derived from mushrooms. The organization was created to encourage the use of fungal pigments; to further research on their extraction and employment; to encourage research and cultivation of dye fungi; to financially assist artists and researchers to participate in international symposia and exhibitions. The IMDI website www.mushroomsforcolor.com is dedicated to the continuing worldwide exploration, news and communications about using fungal pigments. We are pleased to make available the recent reprint of Miriam's groundbreaking book, "Mushrooms for Dyes, Paper, Pigments and Myco-Stix" at the Santa Cruz Fungus Fair.

International Mushroom Dye Institute

Just Mushroom Stuff

Just Mushroom Stuff, launched in 2008, is the one stop shopping site for mushroom-related gifts and accessories. We offer items ranging from mass-produced utilitarian products to whimsical, one-of-a kind treasures and collectibles. In keeping with the global market, we purchase mushroom-related stuff worldwide, including the USA.

My wife Carol Reed, an accomplished jeweler, goldsmith, and silversmith in San Francisco (she created the mushroom earrings we sell), and my daughter Dana and son Joshua have been instrumental in assisting and supporting me in sales and marketing of Just Mushroom Stuff. Check out Curt's stuff at: www.JustMushroomStuff.com.

Mushroom Adventures

Mushroom Adventures was started in 1996 in San Francisco in a basement garage. Founder Donald Simoni had been growing mushrooms for over five years when he needed more equipment: a pressure cooker that cost over $400.00. This seemed a lot of money at the time to spend on a hobby, so Don made a few mushroom kits to sell at the local mushroom fair. This went very well and Don earned half the money for the pressure cooker. Shortly after the San Francisco fair another mushroom fair in Santa Cruz was coming up so Don attended and sold more mushroom kits and his business began.

By 1998, the first mushroom kit boxes were printed. In 1999 he began wholesaling his first mushroom kits. In 2000 we out grew our basement operation and moved the production portion of our operation to Petaluma, California. There we had more room and we were closer to our raw materials.

The product line has increased by adding new mushroom kits and removing some that proved difficult to maintain. Don has been going through growing pains as the company sales have increased which has continuously forced him to find better ways to handle higher volume and to make a better product. Mushroom Adventures moved to Marysville in 2006.

Todd Spanier/King of Mushrooms

Todd Spanier loves nothing more than to seek out morels, porcini, huckleberries, you name it — as long as it's wild. His business, run from his grandfather's Colma warehouse, is to gather wild foods and get them into markets and restaurants.

His white chef's coat is embossed with "Purveyor of Wild Edibles," and his morels wind up on tables at Oliveto and Chez Panisse. Burlingame's Ecco was his first mushroom customer, when he was just 16. His "King of Mushrooms" nickname started as a family joke, the title bestowed on whoever found the biggest mushroom that day. For his business, Spanier taps into a network of 3,000 pickers who follow the mushroom seasons from Southern California to Alaska.

Jeannine Calcagno Niehaus/Raku Woman

Jeannine Niehaus is a valued fixture at the Santa Cruz Fungus Fair. She has been a producing studio potter for over 35 years and still loves it. It is a tradition the can be traced throughout history and gives her a connection to the cultures of the world. And since Niehaus has a compulsion to make things, what better way than with clay? Her work is sold almost exclusively at juried Fine Arts shows throughout central California and also directly from her studio. She really enjoys meeting the people who buy and use her pieces.

Every new offering of her mushroom stoneware pottery is more amazing than the previous year. Visit her website to see examples of her work: http://jcniehauspottery.com/