Now with 10% less sodium.
• So Crabby, now that you’re a mushroom identification expert (having been on one mushroom foraging expedition), what can you tell me about this enormous specimen I found on my lawn? Delicious sautéd in butter or deathly toxic? A little moot now, since the lawn cutting dude was here today while I was out.
• I just watered your potatoes, which pretty much guarantees we’ll be getting a torrential downpour tonight. As you can see, they’re blooming. Should I be nipping these in the bud (as it were), the way you’d pinch the blossoms off herbs so that energy isn’t diverted from the edible parts into producing flowers? There’s so much I don’t know about gardening (though I do know not to water in the heat of the day).
• One reason (among many) that I don’t want to be a contestant on Hell’s Kitchen is because Gordon Ramsay would constantly be yelling “You didn’t season this!!! Donkey!!!” at me. That’s because I seldom salt food when I’m cooking.* It’s how I grew up – my mom didn’t salt her food either (because of blood pressure issues) and so my palate is probably a little skewed compared to most people. I mention this because I heard on the radio today (and is anyone really surprised?) that most Canadians eat too much salt. I can’t really be smug about this, though. I’m probably getting more than I need from salty foods such as cheese, olives, pickles and so on, and of course from eating out.
*I do tend to use a lot of freshly ground pepper though – maybe too much (he’d yell at me for that too)
-Posted by Jean Poutine
May Contain Nuts 
Looks like a shaggy mane that’s inking up and dying to me. Shaggy manes are lovely edible – some photo in case it helps ID what you have/had: http://www.kevinkossowan.com/?p=1098.
But impossible to confirm ID for sure via a single photo, so if you die trying it, don’t blame me. And if you get a whole whack of them in September, let me know!!
Eat the mushroom donkey! I am sure that is what Gordon would say. After consulting one of my many geeky books, it appears to be a Coprinus Comatus or as Kevin said a shaggymane (or a lawyer’s wig). The book says it grows on city lawns August through September. It says it is ‘tops’ in the taste department, but you must cook it immediately after picking. If you don’t the gills will turn to a black inky liquid. Ewwww. When it grows back bring me over for a personal consultation and we will decide if we are brave enough to eat it.
I’ll tell lawnmower man to go around the mushrooms.
My geek books also tell me there is no point to picking the flowers off the potatoes. We didn’t do it growing up and we always had more potatoes than we needed.