Am I Allowed to Chuckle?

Friends, if I chuckle a little bit at you, will you chuckle along with me?

[Aside: every time I poke a bit of fun at something that happened in the dining room, some small-minded person accuses me of all kinds of evil things. I get the most obnoxious hate emails you can imagine, just for pointing out human foibles. If that's your mindset, could you just please click on over to somebody else's blog?]

Again, I ask you, if I chuckle a little bit at you, will you chuckle along with me?

This weekend I got asked several times about the hedgehog that I was sautéeing with black trumpet mushrooms. At first, I thought customers were pulling my leg, but no, most were quite serious.

The menu read:

Wild Hedgehog and Black Trumpet Mushrooms Baked Under Brie
Fresh from our Forager in Oregon, Wild Mushrooms Sautéed with Shallots and Thyme, Baked under Brie Cheese

Seriously, that's hedgehog mushrooms and black trumpet mushrooms. I'm not picking on your lack of knowledge of wild mushrooms, really I'm not, but surely you have to see the humor in the unintended consequences of writing in a language that parses ambiguously!

I've since re-ordered the words as "Wild Black Trumpet and Hedgehog Mushrooms" and although this doesn't resolve the ambiguity of the English, hopefully this will help clarify my intention. LOL.