Prairie Oysters

After a half-decade dealing with a chronic illness and unable to write, I did the only thing that made sense: start a gourmet oyster mushroom business out of my mom's basement. I'd never eaten oyster mushrooms before, but they looked fun. And since I was in so much pain I could barely leave my house, the commute to the basement was manageable. I do everything from scratch: from lab work on petri dishes to cooking rye grain in a pressure cooker to soaking an entire bale of straw in my bathtub, I know the entire production process of growing and selling mushrooms. And since starting Prairie Oysters two years ago, I've sold to countless chefs and restaurants across Winnipeg and did a summer stint at one of the local farmers' markets. I even got a two-page spread in the Winnipeg Free Press, the city's most-circulated newspaper. But as much as I love growing oyster mushrooms, copywriting is the one skill I'm exceptionally good at. So with my health improving, it's time to get back at it.