George Viaud likes to understand how things work. He's a self-educated software engineer, the chief technology officer of a large ad tech company, and a guy who got hopelessly lost in a Google search.
"One day, I was just curious: How do they make mushrooms?" Viaud says. "I started looking into it and before you know it — down the rabbit hole. Then I'm like, I think this is something I can get into. But I need help."
Paul Platt is Viauds next-door neighbor and his brother-in-law, a vice president at a national solar company with an operations background and a green thumb.
"Paul's got an amazing ability with things that live and grow," Viaud continues. "So I said, 'Hey Paul, do you want to grow mushrooms?'"
Growing mushrooms sounded like a fun idea to Platt. Then Viaud asked his wife, Jennifer, to join, and Platt asked his wife, Stephanie, to join, and together the two couples founded Gem State Mushrooms in 2019.
Gem State Mushrooms in Coeur d'Alene grows gourmet mushrooms for fine dining and home kitchens alike. The Viauds and Platts are committed to the highest quality "culture to table" produce, while also educating their community about the delightful diversity of edible fungi.
This past summer, Gem State sold at the Kootenai County Farmers Market and partnered with local chefs to create new recipes for mushroom lovers and skeptics alike. This coming winter, Gem State Mushrooms is not only continuing to sell high-end fungi to high-end restaurants, but they're also offering a CSA-like subscription box so that everyone can access fresh 'shrooms all year.
"In our everyday life, we don't always get to do things that can really impact the community," Viaud says. "So that was also nice, other than just wanting to understand how things tick."
Since Gem State Mushrooms grows its mushrooms indoors in a carefully controlled environment, they can grow and harvest year-round. The farm produces about a dozen varieties of gourmet fungi, from blue, pink and golden oysters to king trumpet and lion's mane mushrooms.
This winter's CSA boxes will be available weekly through online preorder at gsm.farm. Customers can choose different sized boxes, from 8 ounces to 1 pound, or as many pounds as a family wants to eat. Gem State offers two types of boxes: a lion's mane-only box, due to the mushroom's growing popularity in health and wellness circles, and a grower's choice varietal pack. Prices are the same as at this year's farmers market season — one 8-ounce box for $12, two 8-ounce boxes for $20, or three for $30.
It's not hard to go through a pound of mushrooms a week, the two couples say. Stephanie and Jennifer developed a recipe for faux crab cakes made with lion's mane mushrooms. Paul loves pickled king oysters or Hungarian mushroom soup, and George perfected tempura fried golden oysters. And they're not gatekeeping their ideas.
"One thing that sets us apart from a farmers market is that we like to give recipes with our mushrooms," Stephanie says.
Gem State asked chef Cynthia Monroe, a culinary instructor at Spokane Public Schools' skill center NEWTech Prep, to create and demonstrate new mushroom dishes at the farmers market.
Monroe thought she didn't like mushrooms, but once she started cooking with Gem State's blue oysters, she was hooked. Monroe threw mushrooms into everything she usually ate, from salads to sliders to tacos. If she could convince skeptical market-goers to taste her samples, they were usually just as happily surprised as she was.
"They came back and said, 'I want to be vegan,'" Stephanie says, laughing.
But there isn't one diet or eating style that is more popular than others among Gem State's clientele.
"Everybody who likes mushrooms and loves steak loves mushrooms on their steak," Paul says.
He also says that Stephanie and Jennifer are the "muscles and brains" behind getting their mushrooms to the community. Gem State has been featured in classes at The Culinary Stone, showcased at regional culinary festivals like Crave!, plus they've partnered with chefs Caleb Hansen at Terraza and Rory Allen at Table 13 for special paired meals. But they're just as happy sharing ideas one on one with customers at the market.
"We were hosted at someone's house just to talk about mushrooms," Jennifer says. "They're wanting to know where their food comes from. They really want to meet the farmer and know their practices."
A lot of work goes into "demystifying" mushrooms, which, for how common they are, still seem pretty exotic to many consumers, Paul says.
"They're not animals, they're not plants, so what are they?" George asks. In the four years that he's been growing mushrooms, George hasn't lost his fascination with fungi.
"A pinhead of mycelium, a tiny little sample of mycelium that starts on a petri dish, will yield hundreds if not thousands of pounds of mushrooms," he says. "So what that also means is that if anywhere along with that process, something goes wrong, and you're unaware of it, you won't be successful at the end of the day. It's very humbling. Just when you think you've got things figured out, something will come and get you."
Growing mushrooms is a 24/7 job for George, Jennifer, Stephanie and Paul, on top of their other full-time jobs and families. There are fungi and finances on the line, which might stress other sets of in-laws. But it's "a labor of love," Paul says, in more ways than one.
"We know we have a good time together," Jennifer says. "Stephanie and I think that's like a priority. We're all working together, and you just have to laugh. There are hiccups and there's frustrations and we're humans. But at the end of the day, you have such love for each other, right? At the end of the day, what we're doing is just such a happy, wonderful thing." ♦
GOUDA MUSHROOM MAC
Recipe by chef Cynthia Monroe
Yield: 4 servings
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups heavy cream
- 1 pound gouda cheese, shredded
- ½ onion, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 jalapeño, minced
- ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon Tabasco sauce
- 1 pound oyster mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup noodles of choice
- 3 cup water
- Salt for water
- Oil as needed for sauteing
INSTRUCTIONS
- Place a sauce pan on medium heat and add a small amount of oil. Saute onion until translucent, add jalapeño and continue to saute for a minute or two. Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
- Add mushrooms and saute until soft, 7-10 minutes depending on size of slices and pan.
- Add heavy cream and bring to a simmer. Heat to about 170 degrees.
- Reduce heat to low and start whisking in cheese, one handful at a time.
- Whisk until all cheese is melted.
- Bring 3 cups of well-salted water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
- Once water comes to boil, add pasta, return to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes or until al dente, stirring occasionally.
- Strain noodles and add to cheese sauce.
- Season to taste and serve.
