Carob Chanterelle

Inspired by wild chanterelles that bloom each summer outside her childhood home, welcome to Emma Vernon's mushroom-fueled fantasy, a two-part collaboration with Scents of Wood and Meabh McCurtin. We don't know the secret of attraction, why we're drawn towards some things and repelled by others. Carob Chanterelle is a contrast of primal desires, the ones we can and can't explain. A gourmand tilted off its axis, it is the pinch of sea salt on your ice cream, the malt in your milkshake, bitter carob nibs, a charred marshmallow. The burnt bits you scrape off the bottom of the pan just so you can eat them.

It's licking the bowl and the urge to bite into things we know we shouldn't: an unctuous slab of clay or a smooth, round mushroom in the woods. These urges are fleeting. Act now before they disintegrate into a sweet, velvety, mineral dust. Carob Chanterelle honors the complexity of earth and desire, of sweetness born from unexpected sources, of the beauty found in the things that pull us toward them without explanation.