Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Vermont Bar Journal, Spring 2017, Volume 43, No. 1 | Page 8

PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS
The Mushroom Forager,
An Interview with Ari Rockland-Miller
Jennifer Emens-Butler: I am here in the
office of Fitts, Olson & Giddings in Brattle-
boro to interview Ari Rockland-Miller for
our Pursuits of Happiness column. As our
readers know, this column is an exploration
of our members’ interests and talents out-
side of the practice of law. Ari has a unique
interest and talent in addition to being a
good lawyer, I suppose it’s both an interest
and a talent, right?
Ari Rockland-Miller: It’s definitely a pas-
sion and skillset as well.
JEB: A passion and a skillset, I like that.
We are going to start with the beginning
before we get into your passion. Can you
tell the readers a little bit about yourself,
starting with where you grew up?
ARM: Sure, I grew up in Leverett, Mas-
sachusetts, just outside of Amherst, on 5
acres of land in the woods. I was always
fascinated by the wild mushrooms that
would pop up on my parents’ property and
as a kid I would pile the mushrooms on the
hood of my parents’ car-- mushrooms of
every shape, size and color, and marvel at
the diversity of them. I begged my Mom to
buy me a field guide when I was 10 years
old and she reluctantly obliged. I was al-
ways mesmerized by the wild mushrooms
and plants around me, and that was the be-
ginning.
JEB: So you owe your continued passion
to your mother who bought you the field
guide when you were 10 years old?
ARM: Yes, because she trusted me and
allowed me to pursue this interest. I never
actually ate any wild mushrooms as a kid,
it was more a visual feast, because I wasn’t
confident enough to be 100% sure to bring
something to the table. It wasn’t until after
college when I got a job managing a for-
est farm called the McDaniels Nut Grove
on the Cornell University campus where I
got more in depth experience with mush-
room cultivation and agroforestry systems.
The nut farm was engaged in essential-
ly growing shitakes and other species of
mushrooms under a canopy of nut trees, as
a way to conserve the forest and landscape
while making money. The farm could create
good food, while keeping the forest cover
intact. At that point, my wild mushroom in-
terest had a resurgence and I was seeking
out all the information I could. I was talking
to everyone I could about wild mushrooms,
because it was a little bit mysterious.
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JEB: So you really hadn’t foraged mush-
rooms to eat until after you learned about
mushrooms in more of a commercial culti-
vation, right? At