Penn State Great Valley event

Today was a busy day getting ready for an event that Penn State Great Valley was hosting. A Taste of Wyeth featuring a presentation by Victoria Wyeth, granddaughter of Andrew Wyeth was a very well attended event. Before the presentation attendees enjoyed a wine tasting provided by Chadds Ford Winery. To go with the Wine Tasting a few of Chester County's food specialty shops were asked to provide "tastings" of their products. The Mushroom Cap was suggested by Greg from the CCCVB to be one of those shops. We chose to serve our Italian Mushroom Dip stuffed medium white (picked this morning)mushrooms. Everyone who had one wanted a second. What a difference a very fresh picked mushroom makes! We also served our Roasted Portabella Pasta Sauce on small bread slices. Another big hit!

This was a great night for promoting The Mushroom Cap, showing our Mushroom Cap labeled products as well as our "Shiitake Happens" gift basket, and promoting mushrooms as Pennsylvania's No. 1 Cash Crop all along telling everyone that we are located on State Street in Kennett Square!

Two more 3rd grade classes from Mary D Lang

Our 2nd day of visits from the 3rd grade students at Mary D Lang Elem. School yesterday was great. They had a nice day to walk uptown - weather was perfect as was the day before. What has more potassium than a banana? A mushroom - this is just one of the facts that is learned in our 10 minute video. One other fact is that PA's No. 1 crop is mushrooms - so important to the economy of PA. There is so much to learn about the mushroom industry in our area. Both classes today were attentive. Some tasted our mushrooms with ranch dressing, some tasted the mushrooms without and some did not taste at all. All classes were given a portabella mushroom with instructions on how to make a spore print. That should be a fun project. The morning class selected the Oyster Mushroom as their favorite and the afternoon class chose the Maitake!

Teachers, parents and students - thank you - we hope everyone enjoyed the trip as much as we enjoyed having you!

Mary D Lang 3rd Graders visit

Mary D Lang elementary school is just a few blocks from The Mushroom Cap. Yesterday, 3rd Grade students, their teachers and a few parents walked uptown to visit the Mushroom Museum. The first class arrived at 10 am and the other at 1 pm. Both classes were very attentive. We showed our 10 minute video, let each student peek through the mushroom shaped peep hole and let them each taste fresh mushrooms if they wanted to. We were sure to tell them how proud they should be of an industry that is so important to the economy of Pennsylvania. Many of the students have parents who work in the industry. Some had been to a mushroom house before and some had not. We chose 4 different mushrooms and asked the classes to vote on their favorite - both classes chose the same mushroom - MAITAKE. Why? Mostly because of the way it looks - like a piece of coral in the ocean. We also told the children about the nutritional value of mushroom - 4% vitamin D in all mushrooms - the only plant life that has vitamin D.

We had fun and hope the children did too! It is always good to educate them about the heritage of Kennett Square, PA. There will be two more 3rd grade classes coming today.

Flat Stanley was here!

Flat Stanley arrived at the "Mush Room" today! He had his picture taken under a toadstool, next to a shiitake log and also at the mushroom house display! What fun it is for those students at St. Ignatious Loyola. Could this be the only Flat Stanley to visit a mushroom exhibit? He will have so much to tell about Kennett Square being the Mushroom Capital of the World!

Who is Flat Stanley? Read below.

Well, the project is about a book written by Jeff Brown- Flat Stanley. This book narrates the story of a boy called Stanley who was squashed by a bulletin board whilst he was comfortably sleeping in bed. In the morning, his family realised that Stanley had become flat and that he could now pass underneath doors, travel in envelopes etc. Infact, it is here that the project starts. Every class participating in the project reads the book and draws her own Flat Stanley. Children then send their Flat Stanley to other schools around the world on school visits, at home etc. Then, after this period of time, Flat Stanley returns back home full of pictures, souveniers, photos and information about the place he visited.

A return visit

If you have read through my posts you may remember a group of "Red Hats" - they were here months ago. Yesterday one of those ladies drove to Kennett Square, PA just to get some of our fresh mushrooms! She remembered how fresh and delicious they were.
She was a happy camper especially getting her free lb. of button mushrooms!

A young student from the Radnor School District chose Kennett Square, PA for a school project. She and her mother came to The Mushroom Cap yesterday, leaving with an education about mushrooms, how they grow, how nutritious they are and how many are grown and shipped from our part of the world. We make sure that PA residents and others know that mushrooms are Pennsylvania's No.1 Commodity and how the industry is important to Pennsylvania's economy.
Mom and daughter will surely be back for a return visit to Kennett Square.

Together for Education

This week the 4th grade classes from Mary D Lang visited The Mushroom Cap on a field trip as part of Together for Education, a non-profit organization that is a catalyst for community involvement in education. Together for Education seeks to strengthen the partnership among parents, educators, students and the community through quality program development and communication. This field trip was to enhance the 4th grade PA Industries unit.
The students watched a video about the mushroom industry. They were also able to look through a "mushroom shaped" peep hole to see a man picking mushrooms. They learned that mushrooms were first discovered in Egypt, that spawn came from France and England and that PA produces 63% of the nation's crop of cultivated mushrooms. How about the shiitake log, the maitake log and the oyster log? All mushrooms do not grow alike. The students were given recipes to take home. The class received fresh mushrooms and instructions on how to make spore prints and were given the book by Sue Yocum, Let's To to a Pennsylvania Mushroom Farm.
Thank you Mrs. Wagner, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Desjardien for bringing your students to The Mushroom Cap and we all thank Mrs. Jen Augustine, Executive Director of Together for Education for coordinating the trip.