Hi! This is about the Morels. We also hunted them every spring. You should soak them in cold salt water before you cook them. Then rinse well, coat with flour salt and pepper to taste and pan fry in butter. We would make sandwiches out of them, have them with eggs for breakfast or just eat them as soon as Mom cooked them. I also live in CA and they sell them at Vons supermarket. We bought a new house and had compost and wood chips put down and I found 17 of them in Nov. They do grow out here too. They are not the big yellow spounge they are they earlier grays. But I was very excited to have them grow in my own yard!!! In CA they grow after the rains start in the fall. LuAnn