Hoshi Shiitake

When I was small, my mother kept several two-foot-long logs on the ground next to our bathroom. It seemed miraculous to me to see tiny mushrooms one day suddenly pop up from the bare brown wood. Later I learned how this miracle happened. The logs were moistened with water in which rice had been rinsed; several shallow cuts were made on the surface of the logs; and the cuts were inoculated with spores. The logs were then covered with straw mats and left until one of our family made an exciting discovery: Shiitake mushrooms had appeared!