The new Limestone Hills web site has just been uploaded, and a sample pdf of the Foreword, Introduction and first chapter is now available for download.. Just go here, and click on the download link. I’m currently finalising proofs with the printer and resolving a pre-press issue (the strange case of the disappearing ligatures) (not a medical problem). The whole thing should be on press very soon. I have to put my selling boots on. I wonder if they’ll fit.

Preflighted (who’d have guessed that there were some odd little bits of Times lurking in pages of Hoefler Text), packaged, and burned to DVD (twice). Then over to the printer to drop it off, look at a paper dummy, discuss timings. Should be on machine in the last week of the month, and delivered by the end of the second week of October. Now I have to turn into a sales and promotion person. First priority: an A4 promotional sheet I can send to people, and then I begin the sell-in. It looks as though I’ll have about a month to get the thing “launched”, because in the second half of November I’m off to Europe for a month. A week in London, a mushroom conference in Spain, and then a tour of the truffle business in Spain followed by a few days in the Périgord. So I’ll have four weeks to “do” the initial NZ promotion of the book – four weeks to get the book being noticed, and bought. Will I be left with four pallets loaded with unsold books?

I also have to do some sustained work on the Limestone Hills website, particularly the book pages. I’m aiming to have a .pdf sample of the book available for download in the next few weeks, and the full book available for download soon after the print launch.

Over the years, Antonio Carluccio has had a large part to play in the development of our family cuisine. When Camille I were first married, and it became apparent that if I wanted to eat something other than takeaways I’d have to do the cooking, the first cookbook we bought was Antonio’s An Introduction To Italian Cooking. It fired me with an enthusiasm for Italian food and by some strange osmosis his evident love for finding and eating wild mushrooms worked its way into my system.A couple of years ago, Antonio was the star guest at a local foodie masterclass weekend (Savour New Zealand), and visited Limestone Hills. He cooked porcini in our kitchen:

I had a chance to blame him for my current lifestyle – and get him to sign that tattered old cookbook. He took it all with good grace, and had a good time – one abiding memory is Antonio and pinot guru Danny Schuster sitting in the sun telling each other an endless stream of filthy jokes.A few weeks ago I rather cheekily emailed Antonio and asked if he’d be willing to contribute a foreword for The Truffle Book – and he said yes. I have the text sitting in my computer ready to go. His only stipulation? That I send him my first truffle.

With pleasure Antonio. It’s all yours. And if I could hand deliver it and enjoy a meal at Neal Street, I’d love to… All I have to do is find one.

A short note. An apology for a prolonged absence from the web. I’ve been stuffing transparencies into my new Nikon slide scanner and waiting 15 minutes while the computer transforms them into something I can use in the book. I still need to write about Collapse, by Jared Diamond, the visit to the farm by France-based US food writer and teacher Patricia Wells, the beginnings of the truffle season, and other things. I may manage some soon. With luck.