By Eleanor Widmer

   SAN MARCOS - In New Orleans they're the rage; in New York, if shipments are late, the long-distance wires sizzle with frantic eateries. The National Press Club and the Harvard Club would feel lost without them. Locally, they are staples at Dobson's St. James Bar, La Gran Tapa and at Manhattan, Paparazzi, Pagliacci. La Paloma in Vista actually list them on the menu.

The product is Golden Gourmet mushrooms, particularly fresh oyster mushrooms, enoki and shiitake. They are grown in a San Marcos plant that is a marvel of heigh technology; immaculate, waste-free, and without a trace of insecticides or pesticides. Recognized as the largest grower of specialty mushrooms in the U.S. (a million pound a year since 1988).....to be continued.