Mycologist David Arora used to live in Santa Cruz and travel to Mendocino County for rainy season mushroom hunting, but now he lives where the action is. The Chronicle shares his eclectic and fireplace-filled (he has 5) house with us. Of course there are baskets for collecting mushrooms, a mushroom sculpture, stashes of dried mushrooms, but he also has a wall full of Pu-erh tea cakes he’s collected from his visits to Yunnan, China (“the world’s largest exporter of wild mushrooms”). Arora uses one of his fireplaces to grill his wild mushroom finds.

There are 75 newspapers from around the world in this gallery of day-after inauguration editions. So colorful in many ways. Newspapers used to be just black and white.

Thomas Groppel, director of ceremonies of the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, was in charge of coordinating 5,000 military ceremonial troops at the Presidential Inauguration. But he also made sure the Steinway played by Gabriela Montero for John William’s Air and Simple Gifts had a heater on it. “A grand piano in 25- to 30-degree weather doesn’t sound like Steinway would like it to sound. That’s not acceptable for us.”

The Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre is in its 80s and, while still going strong, in need of some repairs. The Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has been gathering donations for the past few years to pay for the refurbishing the Wurlitzer. The organ is one of the largest of its kind and original to the Paramount from the days of silent films. House organist Dennis James plays original scores, when available, for Silent Movie Mondays.

I, and many newspaper editors, loved this nighttime view of the U.S. Capitol, hung in bunting, lit up, and ready for the big day. There are five American flags hanging above the proceedings, two celebrate the new President’s home state of Illinois with the 21 stars that were on the flag when it entered the Union.

Seattle Food Geek publishes a review of Lark the same night we ate there. We had three of the dishes pictured, plus cheese, foie gras terrine, and a lot of pig. Oh and desserts. We don’t eat out very often these days so it was a nice treat. I agree with Scott’s assessment of “dischord between my stomach and wallet” though I admit I always feel that way at small plate places. The Seattle Times has just reviewed Jerry Traunfeld’s Poppy and at $32 for 10 little dishes in a thali, plus the Herbfarm pedigree, I’m hoping I’ll enjoy that too one day soon, perhaps with less dischord.

Nifty historic football posters for sale. A nice history of vintage poster styles. (via Uni Watch)

Snopes says it’s true: starting on Tuesday, department stores will be giving away free cosmetics to settle a price-fixing class action lawsuit. Anyone who bought cosmetics from the defendant manufacturers between 1994 and 2003 can claim one product from one manufacturer, but it’s a short list of products that may not be that exciting (the list is probably a good indicator of what products are the cheapest to produce — shower gel anyone?). As there’s no way to track a) who is owed a product and b) who already got one, I predict everything will be gone in a jiffy.

There are various bits and pieces of opinion out there now on Joss Whedon’s upcoming premiere of “Dollhouse” (Feb 13 on Fox). This one on a Wired blog seems the most straightforward. The show is not gonna be funny at first, which is throwing Whedon’s fans off. So not so much with the “not so much.”

It is long past time for me to teach our son (4) how to use chopsticks. After an unproductive first lesson (short attention span + too much giggling), I decided to educate myself on how others teach this important skill. Several YouTube videos and “how to” articles later, I determined that my chopsticks technique is different from everyone else who has decided to share theirs on the Internet. And I was reminded of the revelation I had at a family dinner a few years ago where I discovered that in my family of five, only my dad and I use chopsticks the same way. No one remembers if my dad was the one who taught me to use chopsticks or if this is a coincidence, but we both only use the pointer finger and thumb to move the top stick. The middle finger stays on the bottom stick. I’m sure there must be others out there like us and I intend to pass this apparently recessive trait down to the next generation.