photo Elliot Rubenstein

After three long dry years, it's nice to see the return of some old friends. These are Australian morels (Morchella elata), sometimes known as black morels.

At first, they are hard to see amongst the forest floor litter, but soon, your eye gets in. The best places to look are in the box-ironbark forests of central Victoria. You can pick them is State parks with a licence, or on private property with permission. National parks are a no-no.

We adore them fresh in their very brief season which lasts two or three weeks only. What doesn't get used can be frozen quite successfully, but drying is the preferred option as it concentrates the exquisite mushroom flavour.

Despite the good rains, our usual spots haven't yielded as much as previous years, so we'll have another look this weekend in case the main flush has been delayed.

Fingers crossed.