This week I’m your mushroom cheerleader. I know this is a little brazen, but bear with me. If you’re on the fence about mushrooms, I have two recommendations. 

1. Make this new recipe for Umami Mushroom Lo Mein. Why? Mushrooms and noodles were made to go together; add a sauce spiked with hoisin, sesame oil, mirin, oyster sauce, ginger, and garlic and you truly have an umami bomb.

2. Read Brown is the New Green: Versatile and Flavorful, Mushrooms Might as Well Be Magic. Why? Because learning to cook mushrooms properly – browning them well for flavor, letting extra moisture escape during cooking, even cutting them in the best shapes for maximum browning – is the key to enjoying them. When mushrooms brown, they undergo something called the Maillard reaction, a chemical process that transforms the carbohydrates and amino acids in mushrooms, directly producing the intense flavor compounds that we now recognize as umami.

In the article (which appears in print in the latest edition of Martha's Vineyard magazine), you’ll also find flavor-pairing ideas and tips for cooking with the four mushroom varieties that I think are most versatile and easiest to find on the Island – creminis, shiitakes, portobellos, and oyster mushrooms.