thelocaldiner.com

Lauren Etter and Janet Adamy report ($) in the Journal about the morel rush now happening along the Whitefish Range west of the divide. A fascinating local market develops around the wild crop, with impromptu buyers popping up along roadsides to pay the pickers who roam last year’s wildfire burns in search of the fungal delicacy. There’s plenty of incentive:

Pickers here are selling a pound of fresh morels for about $3.50, which is low, they say. Wholesalers are selling fresh morels for as little as $8 a pound, not quite half last year’s going price. . . .

Cooks love morels, which have a spongelike appearance, because of their nutty taste and extraordinary ability to soak up sauces. A pound of morels sells for as much as $40 at fancy food stores like Dean & DeLuca in New York.

On the production end, the forest service charges $100 for a season harvesting permit and $500 for a buying permit in National Forests (commercial harvesting is banned in wilderness areas and Glacier National Park). For those prices and the cost of a tent to live in, one picker-buyer profiled in the Journal article said he could earn $800 a day all season, but he also faces high theft rates and vigilantism by armed pickers protecting “their” territory. It’s no place to raise a family, but he does: his wife and three young children share the tent.

This St. Patrick’s day many Montanans lamented the closure of the M&M Bar after 113 years of 24-hour service. So here’s some great news (on the 100th Anniversary of Bloomsday, no less):

BUTTE — The M&M Cigar Store, a landmark here for more than a century but closed 14 months ago in a bankruptcy case, may be reopening soon.

Bud Walker, a real estate agent and Butte-Silver Bow commissioner, said he hopes to reopen the bar by late summer.

He said the family partnership deal with owner Patty Lisac, including its liquor license, may close in July.

So raise a toast to Commissioner Walker for taking up the mantle of a Butte institution!

And if you missed the opportunity to buy the M&M (asking price $195,000, but some construction needed to bring it up to code), you have several other chances to own a piece of history, from the Irish Times (the M&M’s St. Patty’s day stand-in), to the Anaconda Company’s pay office, to the Dumas Brothel (”America’s Longest Running House of Prostitution”). Let’s hope they all end up in good hands.

Our foodie friend Jen posts about supporting local agriculture. Helena’s local food partisans shop at the Real Food Store, which recently won organic certification from the Montana Department of Agriculture.

Helena is lucky to have such a large locally-owned market as the Real Food Store, organic or not. With few exceptions, it features some of the best of Montana-made foods, from Willy D’s Sweet Hot Mustard to McAlpine Ranch Pork. Real Foods boasts a wall of nearly one hundred different spices in bulk (including several strengths of chili powder and curry), and the best sausage selection I’ve seen anywhere: from chorizo to merguez to bratwurst to hot italian turkey sausage (which we ate last night), their butcher has a way with the spice rack and meat grinder. These cheese selection at Real Foods beats Safeway and Albertson’s. Their deli and hot food bar serves up organic turkey sandwiches and shepard’s pie, as well as pizzas baked on nutty whole wheat crusts. And, true to their base constituency, they peddle a couple dozen granolas by bulk.

All that, combined with long business hours and prices that often meet the national chains (and beat them during their regular and widespread sales), proves that a home-grown grocery store like Real Foods can not just keep up with the big boys, but thrive.