Fungus Fair 2017- Speaker and Chef Bios

Langdon Cook

Langdon Cook is the author of The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, winner of the 2014 Pacific Northwest Book Award, and Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, which the Seattle Times called “lyrical, practical and quixotic.” Cook has been nominated for a James Beard Award (2016) and a Pushcart Prize. His writing appears in numerous publications, and he has been profiled in Bon Appetit, Outside, Salon.com, and the PBS TV series Food Forward. Cook lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

CHEF MARCUS-ROTMAN

CHRISTOPHER HOBBS

Christopher Hobbs, LAc, AHG, is a fourth-generation herbalist and third-generation botanist whose life-long passion for plants was sparked at the age of 5, and then discovered mushrooms at 23. After 40 years of actively teaching and learning about the natural world, he is still ardently listening to what the plants and fungi have to teach.

The author of 25 books on health and herbal medicine, a licensed acupuncturist with more than 15 years of clinical experience, Hobbs is now a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in the plant sciences, especially evolutionary biology, biochemistry, botany, and ethnobotany.

CHEF TODD SPANIER

Noah Seigel

Noah Seigel's field mycology skills are extensive – he has spent over two decades seeking, photographing, identifying, and furthering his knowledge about all aspects of macrofungi. He has hunted for mushrooms throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on multiple expeditions to New Zealand and Australia. He is one of the premier mushroom photographers in the nation, having won numerous awards from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) photography contest. His technique and attention to detail are unrivaled, arising from a philosophy of maximizing utility for identification purposes while maintaining a high degree of aesthetic appeal. His photographs have appeared on the covers and have been featured in articles of multiple issues of FUNGI Magazine and Mushroom the Journal, the primary mushroom enthusiast magazines in the United States, numerous mushroom books, as well as many club publications. He just finished, along with Christian Schwarz, Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, a comprehensive guide for the northern California coast. Noah travels and lectures extensively across America, following the mushrooms from coast to coast, and everywhere in between.

CHRISTIAN SCHWARZ

Christian Schwarz is a mushroom enthusiast and taxonomist and citizen science advocate from Santa Cruz, the land of milk (caps) and honey (mushrooms). He studied at UCSC, and now spends his time photographing, teaching about, and making scientific collections of macrofungi. He is coauthor of the upcoming field guide "Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast", and is slowly building a mycoflora of Santa Cruz County (www.scmycoflora.org). He also writes a blog called Notes of a (www.mycobratpack.tumblr.com). Fungi satisfy his curiosity with their seemingly endless forms (from the grotesque to the bizarre to the sublime). He has travelled in search of fungi throughout the United States, as well as central America, Indonesia, and Europe. Besides mushroom taxonomy and mycofloristics, he’s an excitable birder and passionate about citizen science in general. 

FRANK VIRGIL WINEMAKER

CHEF RACHEL HUGHES

DOMINICK CHIRICHILLO WINEMAKER

CHEF BOB WYNN

Growing up on a farm in upstate New York, my job of making mashed potatoes for Sunday dinner began my love for food and tools. Nothing like newly-dug spuds, butter, cream and a Sunbeam Mixmaster to whip them to perfection. As a child, I also enjoyed hunting mushrooms with my aunt. It wasn't until we moved to Santa Cruz in 1985, that I discovered the Promised Land of mushrooms. My wife, Doreen, gave me a wonderful birthday present — David Arora's mushroom ID class. We went foraging and came across a lawn-ornament sized Porcini. I knew then, we had come to the right place. Ever since, I have been cooking for club events and the Fungus Fair.