Carrot foot Amanita + My mushroom backstory

It's been dry and hot in North Carolina and the 2026 mushroom season is getting a late start in the eastern US. Luckily, I found some stinky but thrilling carrot foot Amanita mushrooms (Amanita daucipes) and share details on how to ID them. I then tell my mushroom backstory (or at least part of it) and share my personal connection with mushrooms, goals and methods for learning about them, and how to not let a lousy date spoil a good mushroom hunting adventure. Carrot foot Amanita (Amanita daucipes) is a large, warty, creamy-colored disaster of a mushroom that smells of spoiled meat, has a big bulb of tissue at the base, and a mess of delicate cottony tissue that can cling to the margin of the cap, stem, and form warts on the cap. Though the carrot foot is a monstrosity from a forager's point of view, they're a common and impressive sight in pine forests in the Eastern US. Let's dig in! Error notice: I accidentally call David Arora's book All the Rain Promises and More "All the Forest Promises and More." I also note that the white chicken of the woods (Laetiporus cincinnatus) is dominant in North Carolina. This is not strictly true; it is dominant in my part of North Carolina, the large flat region between the Appalachians and the Atlantic we call the Piedmont. In the mountains, another chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulfureus) is far more common. Mea maxima culpa 2x!