Brian’s antipodean tour reaches the parts other bands often don’t.
I was all set to start saving up for a trip to see Brian Wilson performing SMiLe at the Sydney Opera House in December, when – by something not far short of a miracle – I learned he was going to turn up in Christchurch on December 17th in the Town Hall. Fabulous. You may expect a review in due course.
It’s the holy grail of truffle production. Tuber magnatum, the Italian white truffle, the most expensive truffle on the planet, has wilfully resisted all efforts to cultivate it in plantations. Now an article by Elizabeth Luard in that British magazine institution, The Spectator, suggests that success is close at hand. You’ll need to register to read the article in the “Irregulars” section of this week’s issue (06/11/04), but it’s worth the effort, if only to read something in the relatively mainstream press that goes beyond the obvious caviar and champagne metaphors and isn’t afraid to use a few scientific terms. Thanks to Tony Vickery of the erstwhile enchiridion blog for drawing my attention to it.
Somebody’s beaten me to The Truffle Book!
I’m sorry if you’re offended by the word “bugger”. It’s an everyday part of the language down here, thanks in no small part to an amusing TV ad for a farm vehicle. It is also a precise expression of my frustration at discovering that someone else has beaten me to the use of The Truffle Book as a title. Now I’ll have to think of something else, and the carefully cultivated uniformity of my book titles has been destroyed.
Perhaps I’ll call it something pretentious like Truffle: From Tree To Table, or just Truffles. Anybody got any ideas?
[Update: 9/1/08] I took no notice, and published anyway.
Superb article by Malcolm Gladwell (originally published in The New Yorker) ostensibly about ketchup, but digging deep into what makes food products work. The Ketchup Conundrum is a really good read, especially if you have any interest in how companies manipulate the food we eat. But this isn’t a scare story about Heinz using rotten tomatoes: it’s about one guy trying to create the world’s best ketchup.
“If you were in Zabar’s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side a few months ago, you would have seen him at the front of the store, in a spot between the sushi and the gefilte fish. He was wearing a World’s Best baseball cap, a white shirt, and a red-stained apron. In front of him, on a small table, was a silver tureen filled with miniature chicken and beef meatballs, a box of toothpicks, and a dozen or so open jars of his ketchup. “Try my ketchup!” Wigon said, over and over, to anyone who passed. “If you don’t try it, you’re doomed to eat Heinz the rest of your life.”
Been there, done that…
Peg (the amazingly charming truffle hound) had her last truffle-hunting gig of the year this morning – sniffing around a plantation of young trees infected with Tuber borchi, known in Italy as the bianchetto or marzuolo truffle.
She was good, too. I took two film canisters with some frozen black truffle inside for Carolyn to hide while I was putting my boots on, and despite the decoy holes Carolyn had dug, Peg stuck her nose in the air and hunted out the baits very quickly. If nothing else, it proves that she still knows what her job is. Hunting out truffle baits like this keeps her nose in, and gives me a chance to reward her – positive reinforcement even if there are no real truffles to find. And there weren’t.
My good lady wife does an enormous amount of travelling. She is addicted to Kiri Te Kanawa and exceptional tenors (this does not include Bocelli). Put the two things together and you have a prime candidate for an iPod. Much better than travelling with a Walkman and a bagful of tapes or CDs. Her 2002 Christmas present was one of the first generation 10GB models, and when she got her head round what it was for, and that it was easy to use, she fell in love with it. It became her constant companion.
On Tuesday I called in to Radar Records in Christchurch. I left with the new Elvis Costello CD and the remarkable new Nick Cave double, but I didn’t get my paws on Smile. Yesterday, as I passed the record store in our local mall I heard a faintly familiar fragment, and diverted rapidly inside. Smile was looking up at me from the “now playing” pile, so it was immediately purchased. It has been on various players ever since. In fact I’m ripping it to the iPod as I write.
I collected the repaired mower last night. A shiny new engine which sounds smooth and lusty and perky. I’m not a “petrolhead” (as motor enthusiasts are called down here), but I did notice a distinct difference to the old machine that can be summed up as “more oomph”, and it’s quieter. So I started mowing the 10 days growth off the top of the lawn. Did that, then started doing the orchard. Rain decided to fall in sufficient quantities to make the grass greasy, and the slopes unmowable, so I stuck the amazingly charming Peg in the car and tootled off to the office.
A marginally productive day, but the quince flowers looked rather lovely.
Fresh off the wires, from the ABC in Australia: news of this year’s truffle harvest in Western Australia.
“Western Australian truffle growers are hoping to enter the commercial market next season after this year’s bumper crop. The state’s biggest trufferie in Manjimup has produced 100 French black truffles this season. That compares to last year’s production of just one. Scientist Nick Malajczuk says some of the truffles sold for $2,500 a kilo. “We sold all the produce to local restaurants in Western Australia – we just didn’t have enough to sell to the eastern states or overseas,” he said. He is expecting an even bigger crop next year and hopes to become a force in the global market. With about five smaller trufferies in the south-west, he is also looking to form a truffle co-operative to boost export.”
Good news for Australia’s truffle growers, of course, but why the hell can’t they call their truffle plantations truffières, not trufferies. The proper word might be a bit harder for the Aussie tongue to get round, but if they really hope to have an impact on the world market. they might find a smattering of real French of some assistance. Meanwhile, in Italy the white truffle season in the Marche is about to begin. Tuber magnatum might even be more affordable this year. I know where I want to be right now, and it isn’t mowing the lawn.
Monday dawns sunny and warm. By the time I’ve got the tractor full of diesel and hooked up to the cultivator (and the iPod firmly attached to my belt), I’m beginning to feel distinctly hot. There’s a bit of a nor’wester blowing, the sky is very blue, and the tractor is behaving itself, so I tie the amazingly charming truffle hound to her chain (to prevent her disappearing, tail up, in pursuit of me, but mostly rabbits – for hours) and chug off to the truffière. The tillage proceeds well. The tines (see first entry in this category) are supposed to loosen up the top 10 to 20 cm of soil, generally aerating things before the truffle mycelium begins its spring growth. This is supposed to encourage the formation of truffles. I live in hope.