I should be so lucky (lucky, lucky, lucky)

I have a Google News Alert set to email me whenever something truffle-like pops up on the net. Ninety percent of the time it's stuffed with restaurant reviews where ambitious chefs are overusing wholly artificial truffle oils to be trendy, or chocolate is involved, but sometimes it comes with a gem like this one from the BBC. Not only does it feature an English village straight out of Miss Marple or Midsomer Murders - Little Bedwyn - but it reports the finding of 10kg of summer truffles (Tuber aestivum) on one farm.

Not much time for musings on this - too many bills to pay - but I rather hope my T uncinatum are as prolific…

Monday, September 20, 2004 12:00 am (permalink)

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The Truffle Book

Winner of the Special Jury Award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. "Absolutely rivetting" - a well-known prince. Available as softback, limited edition hardback, and PDF. Free sample PDF.

Full text searchable in Google Book Search.

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current reading

It's taking me far too long to read this. I have been a fan of Pynchon since reading Gravity's Rainbow as a student. Against The Day strikes me as one of his most approachable novels, full of fantastic characters and wild invention, but I've been busy doing word things, and sometimes the last thing I want to do is read. But this is like fine wine, keeps tempting me to another glass. At 1085 pages, I'll be squiffy before I'm finished.

just read

I've read two books called Heat in the last month. One was damn scary, and one was by George Monbiot, about global warming (which has a fantastic cover). Some would say I've been and gone and had my mid-life crisis, but it didn't involve doing an apprenticeship at the altar of real Italian cuisine and a tyrannical chef. Bill Buford is not me, and for that I'm grateful. I suspect he may be too. I enjoyed it - the kitchen stuff was pretty compelling (as was the Italian butcher I may just have to visit next time I'm on Italian truffle time), but somehow the whole thing didn't hang together. I know where Bill's coming from - and I can sort of sense where he went - but his own motivation (and his family's reaction) remain mysterious.