Tạp chí Travel World tháng 01 và 02 /2010

Tạp chí Travel World tháng 01 và 02 /2010

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

the

Food

Wine

issue

310.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

FEATURES

8 CHAMPAGNE

A sparkling wine from a dazzling region

BY GARY LEE KRAUT

14 FARM TOFORK

California’s Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite is on the cutting edge of this sustainable agricultural movement

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY INGRID HART

20 MIDNIGHTTRUFFLEHUNTERS

Sneaking around in the dead of night proves profitable when you’re in Alba

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACKQUELINE HARMON BUTLER

24 GOTTRUFFLES? OREGONDOES.

The West’s culinary gold rush seeking nuggets of white and black fungi

BY MARCIE J BUSHNELL

30 LOSGATOS: GEM OF THEFOOTHILLS

Where gourmet restaurants and vineyards are at your fingertips

BY NELL RAUN-LINDE

34 HARBINICEFESTIVAL

The Old Paris of the Orient transforms the ice into gold

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADRIEN GALLO

38 PATAGONIANPANORAMAS STORY BY PETER ROSE / PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER AND HEDY ROSE

COLUMNS

4 FROM THE PUBLISHER

6 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

7 BENEFITS OF BEING A NATJA MEMBER

42 SENIOR TRAVEL

Chicago Museums Exhibit an Ethnic Melting Pot / BY VICTOR BLOCK

46 SPORTS & SIGHTS

New South Cities Blossom Into Sports Meccas / BY DAN SCHLOSSBERG

50 ARTS & ARCHITECTURE

Deep In The Heart of Texas / BY SUSAN JAQUES

54 GADGETS WE LIKE

Making Travel Just A Bit Easier

56 BOOK STORE

10.1 JAN.FEB

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

I have to say that it takes a lot to impress my tastebuds,letalone the tastebuds of more than a dozen travel writers But there we were, sittingall together at the Bistro Napa (located at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno,Nevada) ooooh-ing and aaaa-ing at each appetizer, entree, and dessert placed infront of us “Bistro Napa offers the freshest, eclectic, organically inspired seasonalmenu with titillating entrées from Scallops Rockefeller to succulent filets, organicsalads, wood-fired pizzas, tantalizing side dishes and appetizers from calamari toKobe beef sliders to wood-fired baby artichokes,” according to Atlantis’ Ben Mc-

Donald And titillating is an understatement.

WAIT Did I say RENO? Indeed, I did

The Atlantis was kind enough to host the quarterly NATJA Advisory Board ing in January And what a treat! We were entertained by the very charming ChefClay Slieff at the award-winning Bistro as he explained the mouth-watering dessertsthey had just plopped before us Plates of fresh fondue doughnuts, towering bowls ofcotton candy and their famous chocolate burger—a vegetarian dish with a chocolatefudge brownie patty and sweet roll served with a shot of root beer float and mangoslices as fries They practically needed a backhoe to roll us out of the restaurant andback to our rooms (or casino)

meet-The resort has recently undergone a $100 million expansion and the rooms in theConcierge Tower are quite nice Our view toward snow-covered Tahoe was breath-taking But for me, even more noteworthy was the Spa The 30,000-foot sanctuaryhas rooms and treatments I’ve never heard of They even have a skin treatment that

is offered in less than a dozen U.S spas My two favorite numbers were the herbalsteam room and the cool Brine Inhalation-Light Therapy Lounge with heated floorsand seating Yep, a nap was not hard to accomplish on this little adventure

First, I was feasting in a world-classrestaurant Then I was lounging for hours

in a spa that I needed a compass to find myway around in I had to chuckle I was inRENO! What a world!

JerriJerri HemsworthPublisherE: jerrih@natja.orgB: www.travelworldmagazine.com/blog/publisher

FROM THE PUBLISHER

& COTTON CANDY

The Brine Inhalation-Light Therapy Lounge at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno.

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

Happy New Year! While many people may be working on resolutions

doomed to fail in three months or less, we here at Travelworld International

Mag-azine refuse to take that approach Our resolutions include exploring new

desti-nations, trying novel experiences, and meeting new people Hey, who says yourresolutions can’t match your life’s work?

So, we embrace the wonderful world of food in this issue And because, I for onecan never get enough of truffles, there are two fantastic stories on them from two

very different perspectives (Jacqueline Harmon Butler, page 20 and Marcie J.

Bushnell, page 24) Don’t miss stories on the Champagne region (by Gary Lee Kraut, page 8) and sustainable food in Yosemite National Park (Ingrid Hart, page 14), and other great pieces by some new NATJA voices and our columnists.

In NATJA news, the advisory board just returned from a visit and meeting inReno, Nevada, the location of this year’s annual conference in May It was a pleas-ure to scout in advance all of the offerings the area holds in store for conferenceattendees, from dining on the shores of gorgeous Lake Tahoe to relaxing in thestunning spa of our host hotel, the Atlantis, to eating extremely well in a variety

of restaurants (with a little bit of gambling in the mix) Hope to see you there!Happy and safe travels!

Sept /Oct 2010 MUSIC/LITERARY LIGHTS Nov /Dec 2010 WEIRD & OFFBEAT TRAVEL

Visit http://bit.ly/5Tvbrf for more details

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TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

A Sparkling

Wine from a

Dazzling

Region

BY GARY LEE KRAUT

No wine is more evocativethan

Cham-pagne, the king of sparkling wines Yet Champagne is

so readily associated with romance, celebration, name

brands, and high living that we tend to forget that

be-yond being wine it’s a region in northeast France

Champagne is in fact an earthy product, and the best

way to get to know it is to visit the very earth,

vine-yards, and cellars where it’s produced, some 90 to 110

miles east of Paris That’s close enough that you can

enjoy a glimpse and a taste of Champagne in a daytrip

from the French capital, though an overnight or

two-night stay allows for more thorough explorations Or

three nights if you’re on a mission, as I was in late

Sep-tember, when, as the last grapes were being brought

in from the harvest, four English journalists, a

Cana-dian journalist, and I set out for a serious taste of

Champagne

C H A M P

P A G N E

The Villedomange Vineyard in winter.

PHOTO: JOLYOT

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

Our mission was to get a

well-rounded view of all that goes into

pro-ducing and enjoying Champagne

while keeping in mind the mantra

“drink the wine, not the label.” That’s a

wise approach with respect to any

wine, and nowhere more important

than Champagne It’s an approach that

led us to visit towns and villages,

vine-yards, grapes, cellars, facilities,

Cham-pagne houses great and small, and

meet with the variety of individuals

in-volved in the process Along the way,

we discovered the variety of the wine

as well as of the region

There is no one way to visit

Cham-pagne, but however you do it, whether

for one day or for three, you’ll soon

learn that three important facets of

production define the taste and quality

of the final product:

1 the quality of the grapes

2 the percentage in the final blend ofthe three main grape varieties author-ized in the production of Champagne:

Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, andChardonnay

3 the dosage of sugar and liqueurthat is added (or in rare cases not) to abottle after its second fermentation

Here are various places in pagne where you can learn those de-tails and much more about Champagne,both the wine and the region

it offers a strong dose of historicalsplendor with its bubbly

The hit parade of Champagne houses

in Reims include G.H Mumm,Taitinger, Pommery, Piper-Heidsieck

Notre-Dame de Reims

Cathedral.

PHOTO: C.MAURY

1110.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

Lanson, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart, and

others, so you’re at no loss for cellar

and production tours to choose from

during the day (See the link to the

Reims Tourist Office below for further

touring information.) Meanwhile, the

history of Reims goes both deep and

high: deep in that some of the

Cham-pagne cellars originated as Roman

limestone quarries (a triumphal arch

from the 3rd century is the main

rem-nant of Reims’s development as a

Roman city); high in that the city

rightfully boasts one of the greatest of

all Gothic cathedrals, Notre-Dame de

Reims, built largely in the 13th century,

and a magnificent basilica, Saint Remi

de Reims, that was started in the 11th

century The smiling angel on the

cathedral (see photo) may have begun

as a religious symbol but is now oftenseen as a wink to the pleasures ofdrinking Champagne in Reims

EPERNAY

Epernay and its surroundings live,breath, and eat—well, drink—Cham-pagne There’s little in the way of his-torical distraction here, other than thehistory of sparkling wine Champagne

is Epernay’s raison d’etre Its centralthoroughfare, Champagne Avenue, isthe Rodeo Drive of the big brand bub-bly, including Moet & Chandon,Mercier, Martel, De Castellane, Boizel,Demoiselle, Pol Roger, De Venoge, andPerrier-Jouet, many of which offertours year-round (See the link to the

Epernay Tourist Office below for ther touring information.)

fur-The major Champagne houses inEpernay and Reims offer tours that are

at once informative and promotional.Yet I found during our three-day mis-sion that trying Champagnes from vari-ous producers using different blendswas the best way to get to know the va-riety of sparkling wines in the region.Epernay has an enjoyable conceptbar (and wine shop) called C Commewhere you can do just and with littleeffort The originality of the bar is thatyou can order a series of small glasses

of Champagne selected to give a sense

of the different grape varieties orblends available, i.e 100 percentChardonnay (a.k.a Blanc de Blancs) vs

Grapes grown in Epernay.

PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

50 percent Chardonnay/50 percent

Pinot Noir vs 40 percent

Chardon-nay/30 percent Pinot Noir/30 percent

Pinot Meunier The Champagnes of

different producers will naturally have

a different taste even at similar

per-centages, partly due to the

sugar-liqueur dosage added, nevertheless,

tasting by blend rather than by brand

gives an excellent sense of the range

of possibilities

HAUTVILLERS

Hautvillers is among the most

charm-ing Champagne-produccharm-ing villages, as

well as one of the most historically

sig-nificant Located 4 miles from Epernay

and overlooking a wide sweep of

vine-yards along the slopes of the Mountain

of Reims, the village earns its place in

history because it was here, at the

Bene-dictine Abbey of Hautvillers, that the

monk Dom Pierre Perignon (1639-1715)

worked as cellar master Though vines

had been thriving in the Champagne

region since Roman times, mastering

the natural effervescence of local wines

and controlling the double

fermenta-tion that tends to take place in northern

climes began in the 17th century, thanks

in part due to curiosity and efforts of

Dom Perignon Assembling wines from

different years and different kinds of

grapes, he and other cellar masters at

the time developed cork-popping

Champagne as we know it today That

connection leads Hautvillers to call

it-self “the cradle of Champagne.”

Dom Perignon is well known as a

trademark for a high-end Champagne,

but we’re talking here about the wine,

not the label Dom Perignon is

en-tombed in the abbey church at

Hautvillers beside Dom Ruinart,

an-other monk-cum-trademark

With an annual production of about

300 million bottles, Champagne is

nat-urally big business dominated by thedozen or so major Champagne houses,themselves mostly belonging to largeluxury groups Yet many of the Cham-pagne vineyards themselves belong toindividual families, who either sell theirgrapes to the large houses, produceChampagne as a cooperative, or pro-duce their own Champagne Thus theinterest of visiting the small producerswhose sparking wine isn’t exported,such as G Tribaut in Hautvillers, where

a sunny day, a view over the vineyards,and a varied tasting provided us with avery cheery aperitif

suffi-Our own mission, which included adesignated driver, took us to Châlons-en-Champagne While Reims has thefeel of a capital city, the regional capi-tal is in fact the pleasant but less strik-ing town of Châlons There’s a

monstrous cathedral, an easy-goingriverboat tour, a touch of Americanhistory (the American Unknown Sol-dier was selected at City Hall follow-ing WWI)… and a Champagne house

Though removed from the currentgrowing zone for grapes that go intoChampagne, we made the detour toChâlons to visit the medium-sizedChampagne house Joseph Perrier

Founded in 1825, Joseph Perrier duces about 800,000 bottles per year,many of which are kept in Roman

pro-limestone quarries dug into the hillabove the head office It’s an example

of a type of Champagne house thatyou might visit by appointment

We also headed to the most vineyards in the region planted

southern-in the south of the region whoseplanting zone is called the Cotes-des-Bar That’s where we visited Drappier,another medium-size Champagnehouse with an annual production ofabout 1.6 million bottles

After visiting the cellars, portions ofwhich were dug out by Cistercianmonks in 1152, we tried several of thehouse’s Champagne including a 100percent Pinot Noir “brut nature,” which

is dryer than most Champagnes in thatthe sugar-liqueur that is typically added

in varying doses to sparking wines isabsent I liked its dryness, though in ourgroup some found it too dry

Throughout our stay, each one of usdiscovered his or her individual prefer-ences with respect to Champagne.Some liked it sweet, some like it dry,some liked it more Chardonnay ormore Pinot Noir, … some just likeddrinking After three days, more than adozen brands, and sometimes severaltypes within those brands, some of themystery of Champagne may be gone,but it’s for me it’s even more evocative,

as it calls to mind both a sparklingwine and a brilliant travel experience

USEFUL LINKS AND INFORMATION

April though October offers the bility of the nicest weather for a visit

possi-to Champagne but visiting at any time

of year allows you to learn about theregion’s sparkling wines and to get asense of its history and landscape

Champagne-Ardenne Tourist Boardwww.tourisme-champagne-ardenne.com

C H A M P A G N E

1310.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

Though I’ve referred to the Champagne

region throughout this article, the

ad-ministrative region is actually called

Champagne-Ardenne as it also

com-prises the area in and around the hills

and forests of the Ardennes along the

C Comme (wine bar and shop in Epernay)www.c-comme.fr Open daily

Champagne G Tribaut (Champagnehouse in Hautvillers)

www.champagne.g.tribaut.comChampagne Joseph Perrier (Champagnehouse in Châlons-en-Champagne)

www.joseph-perrier.comChampagne Drappier (Champagnehouse in Urville, Côte-des-Bars)www.champagne-drappier.com

Gary Lee Kraut operates the online travel and culture magazine France Revisited, www FranceRevisited.com, a premier site “for savvy readers and experienced travelers.” He has written five guides to Paris or France and numerous articles, essays, and op-ed pieces.

The infamous Dame de Reims Cathedral.

Notre-PHOTO: G OXLEY

G Tribaut in Hautvillers.

California’s Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite is on the

cutting edge of this sustainable agricultural movement

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY

BY INGRID HART

farm

TO

fork

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

Half Dome in Yosemite is the key indicator that you’ve arrived at the

Ahwahnee Hotel.

The first meal I ever atein

Yosemite National Park was lentil soup

cooked on a wood burning stove by my

college roommate Elida, a seasonal

employee in the summer of 1983 The

earthy, heart-warming concoction was

divine after a full-day’s hike near

Yosemite’s iconic Half-Dome Yet we

still dreamed of a time when our cash

flow would allow us a full-course meal

at the historic and grand Ahwahnee

Hotel Twenty-six years later, our

dream came true We shared a star meal with the Ahwahnee’s Execu-tive Chef, Percy Whatley in the hotel’scrown jewel dining hall, framed byYosemite Falls and Glacier Point

rock-Dining family style with a Hell’s gels approach to etiquette, we feasted

An-on wild mushroom ravioli and trufflecream; an anti-pasta platter rich withartisan cured meats; free-rangechicken with gravy, mashed potatoesand cranberry sauce; ocean-friendly

Halibut from Monterey Bay with couver clams and local organic greens.Hand-harvested scallops with pork-belly, which Chef Percy called umami

Van-or the fifth taste following sweet, sour,salt and bitter For dessert we sampledsix kinds of sorbet, my favorite beingpassion fruit My college roommateElida grinned and said she alwaysdreamed of dining at the Ahwahneebut claimed, “This dinner surpassed all

my expectations.”

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

We were both delighted when Chef

Percy told us that almost all the fresh

produce comes from within a 150 mile

radius of Yosemite National Park in

the “Farm to Fork” movement

“Sustainable agriculture is

corner-stone to the slow food movement,”

said Chef Percy, a graduate of the

pres-tigious Culinary Institute of America

and a 20-year cooking veteran of

Yosemite, the last four as executive

chef “We live near the San Joaquin

Val-ley, California’s breadbasket We are

committed to local resources for

or-ganic produce, free-range chickens, and

grains In Yosemite, it’s easier to think

about the environment We are on the

cutting edge of this movement.”

Chef Percy, a soft-spoken and sincere

gentleman credits Yosemite’s

Green-path, an environmental stewardship

program, for the authority to launch

the movement Delaware North

Com-panies Parks and Resorts (DNC),

Yosemite’s contracted concessioner,

agreed to his suggestion of partnering

with sustainable agricultural vendors,

telling him to “keep your costs down—

organic is expensive.” Since 1999, Chef

Percy’s been taking a humble approach,

quietly purchasing local products from

at least 40 vendors citing his personal

passion for allowing the high quality of

the food to speak for itself “Every time I

shake hands with the little guy, I

de-velop a working friendship There’s

al-ways a good exchange between a

farmer and a chef I like to see the

emo-tion behind the farmer It makes me

feel good, plus our customers’ benefits.”

After the inspirational meal, Elida

and I took the shuttle bus back to

SOURCE: WWW.YOSEMITE.CA.US

Rows of vegetables at the Madera farm in the San Joaquin Valley Executive Chef

Percy Whatley.

1710.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

Curry Village where we were

slum-ming it in the cabins At nearly $500

for a night’s stay at the Ahwahnee

Hotel, it is still too rich for our

budget—I guess some things never

change Still, our home in the forest

among the cedar and pine trees was

surrounded by 3,000-foot granite cliffs

that kept us giddy and happy We clined on our backs outside our cabin’sdeck, and looked up at the plentifulstars “This feels umami,” my collegefriend sighed, content I agreed, a slice

re-of heaven—sweet

Ingrid Hart , the Divine Daytripper, is a

writer living in Sacramento, California She holds a degree in Journalism from Humboldt State University, California Her credits in- cludeBaja Traveler, Mexico Traveler, Pology, Cal-List, Surfer, High Times, Holistic Happen-

ings, Sacramento Business Journal,

divine-daytripper com, and modcom.com

In the world of Farm to Fork I know

the fork well, but the farm, not so

much To school myself, I visit the

Ahwahnee’s prime purveyor of

pro-duce, a 75-acre certified organic,

family-owned farm called T & D Willey Farms.

Fresh Local Organic That’s the motto

of this Madera farm placed in

Califor-nia’s breadbasket, the San Joaquin

Val-ley Watered by snow melt streams

from the Sierra Nevada, the rich alluvial

soils of this region make up the most

productive farmscape on earth.

I’m sitting in the passenger’s seat of

Tom Willey’s electric cart as we drive

the 75 acres of his and wife Denesse’s

Madera farm We motor past rows of

French Breakfast radishes, Rosa Bianca

eggplants, Russian kale and more than

50 varieties of crops—all organic, a

Gar-den of EGar-den At this farm, there is no

mechanized harvest In fact, the yellow

crookneck squash are picked with

white cotton gloves to protect the

veg-etable’s sensitive skin Talk about a

labor of love.

The life force on this productive farm

is strong, radiating health and vitality.

In large part because of the Willey’s

commitment to old-fashioned farming,

“We do not use any toxic pesticides,”

said Tom pointing to a stand of

sun-flowers—a habitat strip that attracts

beneficial insects for pest control “We

focus on plant nutrient and soil quality That’s the best possible protection.”

I ask Tom, a knowledgeable veteran

of the slow food movement, what Farm

to Fork means to him “It’s about paying more at- tention to the path by which food reaches your plate and then tracing it back to the farm from which it origi- nates.” His farm

is a longtime veyor to Alice Wa- ters’ famed Chez Panisse restau- rant in Berkeley and San Fran- cisco’s Slanted Door “We all need to take more re- sponsibility and be more conscious about how we grow our food,” said Tom “Spend your dollar on the kind of food that you want, don’t spend your dollar on food that you feel guilty about afterward Too many of us do it too often.”

pur-T & D Willey Farms began working with Yosemite about six years ago Tom told me their friend Brenda, a free- range chicken and egg farmer in the local Mariposa area brought attention

to their farm “DNC was trying to

‘green up’ their business and a branch

of that was supplying their facilities with local food growers Procurement agents from DNC came and visited the farm, hooked us up with a local trucker

that delivers to the Yosemite Valley several times a week and we began de- livering produce Our products are at the Ahwahnee Hotel, Wawona Hotel, Yosemite Lodge and all the way up to Tuolumne Meadows at high camp.

We’re very proud of our connection.”

Do Tom and Denesse ever dine at the Ahwahnee? He chuckles a happy laugh and said, “Whenever we have visitors coming from afar and we want to im- press them we take them to Chef Percy

or Chef Mike at the Ahwahnee We let

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

them know we’re coming and they do

something a little special We see our

name on the menu It’s a great buzz.

We like to go up there once or twice a

year and stay overnight and have a

couple of good meals How could you

not like that?”

Back on the farm, the Willey’s send

me home with a box of fruits and

veg-etables similar to what their

Commu-nity Supported Agriculture cooperative

customers receive—which is 15 percent

of their business “I can’t just show you

this produce, you have to taste it,” said

Tom, loading the box into my car trunk.

Inside the box are apples, cucumbers,

broccoli, lettuce, squash, basil, and a

six-pack of farm-fresh eggs I’m thrilled

to see my favorite—red grapes I pop a

firm one into my mouth and marvel at

the flavor—complex yet simple It must

be that rich alluvial soil They taste

earthy, fresh and make me zing all over.

The rest of the grapes sit on my lap for

the journey back to Sacramento.

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD

It’s not possible to discuss Farm to Fork

without bringing up wildly successful

food guru Michael Pollan, best-selling

author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In

Defense of Food Pollan and Willey

know one another, there is a footnote

in Omnivore’s Dilemma that features

his name—although according to Tom

Willey, it’s misspelled.

At UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall,

along with a near-capacity crowd of

1,800, I sat listening to Pollan, a Cal

journalism professor, give a Farm to

Fork talk We’re all trying to get a grip

on the best way to approach the ure of eating The six-foot Pollan looked Berkeley-cool with his sports coat and black-frame glasses Pollan claims we’ve undergone 150 years of diet change and it has taken a tremendous toll on our health “We’re no longer growing food.” said Pollan,“We’re growing food for manufacturing.”

pleas-WHAT’S AN OMNIVORE TO DO?

How do we escape the Western diet without leaving civilization? Pollan of- fered a few rules to help guide the om- nivore’s dilemma: “If it has more than five ingredients, don’t eat it Avoid any foods you’ve seen advertised on televi-

sion Don’t get your fuel at the same place your car does Avoid foods that never rot—like Twinkies.”

Farm to Fork, what exactly does it mean? I suppose it boils down to what Tom Willey told me as I departed the San Joaquin Valley “If we think of our- selves as a biological organism we only have two purposes: one is survival and the other is reproduction Going about surviving and reproducing every day there is nothing more important than what you put in your body.” It remains both an omnivore’s dilemma and solu- tion Michael Pollan sums it up in seven words: “Eat food Not too much Mostly plants.” ■

TRU hu

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

midnigh

Somewhere in the distancea churchbell chimed the midnight hour A heavy mistmade visibility along the valley road challenging.

Nearing our rendezvous site we spotted twosmall nondescript Italian cars hovering by theside of the road The drivers flashed their lights atour mini-bus, then with a squeal of tires, sped offalong the twisting country road Our driver, notintimidated by their speed, followed closely be-hind as we bumped our way into the hills nearAlba in the Piedmont region of northern Italy

We were in search of the legendary White

Dia-monds, tartufo bianco, or white truffles At a

mar-ket price of nearly $2,000 a pound, truffle huntersare willing to go to amazing extremes in secrecy

as to where these incredible tubers are located

Making a sharp right turn, the drivers lowered

their headlights as we left the main road and lowed a small dirt track further into the hills at amuch slower speed The moon shimmered throughthe mist illuminating the scene with a ghostly glow.Abruptly the two little cars swerved into a widespace beside the road and turned off their en-

fol-gines We had arrived Our trifulaus (truffle

hunters) emerged The two men of minable age were dressed in rough outdoorclothes and carried long pointed walking sticks.They introduced themselves, Stefano Grosso andMario Aprile, in whispers and cautioned us to re-main quiet and calm during our expedition Then,cautiously looking around, they released theirprized truffle hounds, the rather ordinary lookingToby and Dora Neither dog appeared to have adistinct lineage

indeter-Sneaking around in the dead of night proves profitable when you’re in Alba

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACQUELINE HARMON BUTLER

2110.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

Stefanino told us that truffle dogs

are usually a cross mix, with no

dis-tinct genetic background However,

the pups of a successfully trained

truf-fle dog command a high price Truftruf-fle

hunting training begins when the

pups are about six months old and

continues until the dog reaches

matu-rity at two years These dogs are not

household pets

They are trained professionals and

treated with great care and respect

I was a little disappointed to find out

pigs are no longer used for truffle

hunting Mario explained that it was

far easier to train a dog than a pig He

pointed out that it was sometimes

very difficult to wrestle a tuber away

from a 300-pound truffle gorging pig

A dog is willing to sniff out the truffles

then sit quietly wagging its tail

wait-ing for a doggie treat as reward

Stefanino gave a low whistle and

scampered into the bushes after Toby,

closely followed by Mario and Dora

My little group of friends stumbled up

the embankment in hot pursuit Our

assorted flashlights dimly illuminated

the landscape of trees, bushes,

boul-ders, broken branches and a variety of

holes in the ground made by digging

or borrowing animals and by Mother

Nature herself I immediately stepped

into a rather large hole, and promptly

fell over Fortunately I didn’t get hurt

Gee, I thought dusting myself off, this

truffle hunting isn’t a simple stroll in

the woods after all

My friends and I were in Alba for the

famous Fiera del Tartufo Bianco, truffle

fair We spent the day wandering the

aisles of the fair and learning all we

could about these pricey little tubers

We examined, poked, squeezed and

sniffed a great variety of truffles The

high point was when weactually go to taste some

of them shaved on freshfried eggs The taste wasincomparable and deli-cious We also made arrangements toactually go on a truffle hunt later thatnight

The aphrodisiac properties of fles were well known as far back asthe Roman times Apicius exalts theamazing effects of truffles in his fa-mous discourse on cooking, De re Co-quinaria, and lists six different ways

truf-of using them When the Roman pire fell, the magical properties of truf-fles were forgotten and it wasn’t untilthe French started raving about theirmiraculous qualities in the 17th cen-tury that truffles once again became

Em-popular In his Physiologie du gỏt,

Brillat Savarin dedicates six pages tothe truffles exotic possibilities Blacktruffles are found in many places butthe most valuable ones come from thePerigord region of France and aroundNorcia in Italy However, the king oftruffles is the white one found in thePiedmont region of Italy and the bestknown and prized are often referred to

as the White Diamonds of Alba

The main difference between theblack and white truffles is not the colorbut the smell and taste The black trufflehas a pleasing wet leaf earthy smell and

is usually added during the cooking cedure of a dish The white one has amore enigmatic smell, mixed with notes

pro-of fermented honey, hay, garlic, spices,wet earth and ammonia, and is usuallyfinely shaved on cooked or raw foods

Consequently, the taste of the whitetruffle is more complex and, to some,more desirable than the black ones

Choosing a truffle is an importantprocess Examine it closely, squeezing

it gently The best truffles are light incolor, fairly smooth and hard, neversoft or sticky To store, wrap in a papertowel and place into closed, tight jar

and refrigerate Change paper towelevery day and use truffle within tendays of harvesting The common sug-gestion of storing truffles in rice is not

a good one Truffles are almost 82 cent water and the rice will drain themoisture from it

per-Truffles are often found under thesame trees, usually willow, year afteryear, and are harvested between lateSeptember through November That’swhy all the secrecy No one wants any-one else to know exactly which treeproduces the best tubers

To fortify ourselves for our trufflehunting adventure, we had eaten awonderful dinner and enjoyed thelocal wines at the Ristorante Brezza innearby Barolo We feasted on Alba-style raw veal topped with olive oil andsprinkled all over with fresh truffleshavings This was followed by a flakyvegetable and cheese tart, then bygreat bowls of fresh house-made Ag-nolotti with a rich meat sauce The sec-ondo piatti was fragrant oven-roastedguinea fowl basted with Barolo wineand stuffed with local herb infusedrice A delicious selection of Chardon-nay, Barbera and Barolo wines accom-panied each dish Nougat mousse orglazed pears with zabaglione were ourdessert offerings By the time wepoured out the last drops of the incred-ible Barolo wine, I have to admit myfriends and I were feeling very well fedand perhaps a tad sloshed

We trudged on into the dark night,following the now distant sounds ofStefanino and Mario and the hounds.Someone let out a loud yelp of pain asshe hit her head on a low branch.Someone else cautioned her to keepquiet or she would scare away all thetruffles, which dissolved the groupinto giggles Try as we may wecouldn’t keep quiet and soon we werehowling with laughter

Obviously we had scared someoneaway because we heard disgruntled

TRUFFLE

hunters midnight

2310.1 JAN.FEB / TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE

mutterings and rustling in the nearby

bushes, the slam of a car door and

then the screech of tires as someone

sped off into the night

By the time we caught up to our

tri-fulaus, the dogs had begun excitedly

digging into the rough earth

Ste-fanino poked the ground with his

walking stick and right before our

very eyes pulled up a small but nicely

shaped white truffle

Because it had been a very dry year,

the truffle crop was expected to be

minimal, thus driving up the price

Passing the nugget around, Stefaninoestimated its cost to be somewherearound $350

Under a nearby tree, Dora was cally digging, tail wagging and makingsoft growls Mario knelt down and gen-tly patted the dog and commanded her

franti-to sit, then he reached down andpulled a beautiful white truffle fromthe hole Dora had dug The menthought it was worth about $200

Later, sitting in the wine cellar of ourhotel, my friends and I opened an-other bottle of Barolo and discussed

the day’s events We all agreed that

being a trifulau might be kind of fun.

All that bustling about in secretivedarkness trying to remember exactlywhere one found truffles last year, theexcitement of the chase after a hound

on the scent and the ultimate reward

of actually finding a pricey little let all had a certain appeal

root-Accompished travel writer Jacqueline mon Butler has received numerous awards for her writing She can be reached at www.jacquelineharmonbutler.com.

Har-displays the delicacy.

Specially trained truffle-hunting dogs are used instead of pigs because they are easier train and reward.

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

There’s something oddly humorousabout

staking out flying squirrels in the lower elevations of the

Oregon Coast Range But, if you’re a serious mycology fan,

it’s no laughing matter

The flying squirrels, Glaucomys sabrinus, are on a “must

have” mission These little nocturnal rodents are in need

of Vitamin D after the dank, dark months of a cooler than

usual Pacific Northwest winter And their little noses are

twitching

I’m attending the last event of the four-day Oregon

Truf-fle Festival (OTF) held at the Valley River Inn, Eugene, gon at the end of January [2009] Dr James Trappe (pro-

Ore-nounced Trap-ee), one of three co-authors of Trees, Truffles

and Beasts: How Forests Function, is talking truffles and the

squirrels that love them Dr.Trappe, Jim to his colleagues,sporting a salt-and-pepper beard and informally dressed

in a plaid wool shirt and khakis, is a guy who knows fungi.His research interests include the taxonomy of hypogeousfungi, floristics of alpine fungi, mycorrhizal ecology andapplications, and last, but not least, fungal-animal interac-

“Presently, we were aware of an odour gradually coming towards us, something musky,

fiery, savoury, mysterious—a hot drowsy smell, that lulls the senses, and yet enflames

them—the truffles were coming.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Oregon truffles at the Grand Truffle Dinner.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN VALLS

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

tions It’s the latter I’m here to learn

about Dr Trappe is warming up his

audience for a lecture titled Tales from

the Truffle Zone.

After introducing ourselves, I

dis-cover I’m the only native Oregonian in

the house, a fact not lost on the

“trans-plants” that call this moist corner of

the USA home Nevertheless we’re

drawn together like hungry squirrels

to glean all we can about Tuber

gibbo-sum and Tuber oregonense, aka

Ore-gon winter white truffles as well as

the Oregon black truffle known as

Leu-cangium carthusianum.

Jim gives us some background by

stating “Five hundred types of truffles

are found in Oregon and Washington,

and nearly 1,500 types have been

identified in North America.” That’s a

lot of fungi to dig through!

He continues with anecdotes abouthunting indigenous truffles nearDouglas fir tree farms and in thefoothills of the Coast Range “On oneforay we discovered a new genus that

we named FEvanseia, after Frank Evans, co-author of the North Ameri-

can Truffle Society Field Guide.”

Turns out NATS was founded in

1978 by Frank, so the notion of nativeOregon truffles has been around morethan 30 years Jim goes on to explain

“We use an implement called a trufflefork to pull back the duff to uncoverthe fruiting fungi that live on the in-terconnecting webs of Douglas firroots.” Frank smiles and nods from hisplace near the slide projector A photomaterializes showing some dirt-cov-ered lumps just below the surface

In Taming the Truffle The History,

Lore and Science of the Ultimate Mushroom by Ian R Hall, Gordon T.

Brown and Alessandra Zambonelli,Oregon white truffles are described

as possessing “a sweet, musky, like aroma with hints of cinnamon,nutmeg and vanilla.” No wonder theflying squirrels’ noses are twitching.Ripening truffles emit subtlepheromones to discerning olfactoryglands To pique the senses, Dr Halladds that Oregon black truffles areoften described as having high notes

cedar-of pineapple and green apple It’s all

in the nose of the beholder As a plate

of thinly sliced truffles, resemblingbrown pepperoni, is passed, I daintilysniff and behold the essence of: dirt

In a nod to sustainable neurship, fledging Oregon truffle or-chards (truffieres) are poised to

entrepre-BELOW: The truffle dog demonstration at the Marketplace in January 2009 Truffle dog Tom and trainer Jim Sanford from Blackberry Farm in Tennessee will both be with the festival in 2010.PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID BARAJAS

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN HIGBY PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW RAFKIND PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN VALLS

TRAVELWORLD MAGAZINE / 10.1 JAN.FEB

produce world-class

truf-fles Dr Charles Lefevre,

New World Truffieres, Ltd.,

has been a key player in

cultivated truffle

imple-mentation With many

decades of research by

Pa-cific Northwest

profes-sors/mycologists, Oregon

is establishing itself as the

epicenter of all things

re-lated to truffles

Call them a winter crop,

because they tend to come

to fruition between

No-vember and February with

January often the month

to grab your dog, your

truffle fork and your sense

of adventure If you’ve got a trained

truffle-sniffing dog, the gaseous

emissions wafting from the earth

will get his/her attention

The truffle fork will come in handy

for clearing away needles, moss and

twigs to unearth the fungi A sense

of adventure will serve you well as

cold rain pelts you in the face and

your boots accumulate a couple

inches of mud

And there’s gold in them thar’

truf-fles Dr Hall notes “typical prices can

run US$220/kilogram “for Oregon

white truffles Since you’re wet and

muddy anyway, check for

Leu-cangium carthusianum, aka Oregon

black truffles Market prices can go

as high as US$1,000/kilogram for

those dark lumpy spheres

Whether you “dig” truffles or not,

Oregon fungi are on a culinary roll

with local and national chefs

Truf-fles have joined the ranks of caviar

and foie gras in both price and

de-mand Ron Paul, chef, restaurateur

and chair of the Oregon Arts

Com-mission has diligently lobbied the

City of Portland to create a

year-round produce-based Public Market

Ron added his opinion on the status

of Oregon truffles by stating “We areall about the food in the PacificNorthwest because we are sitting in

a culinary Eden.”

The previous evening, the OTF

2009 showcased the culinary ability of Oregon truffles at theGrand Truffle Dinner held at Eu-gene’s Valley River Inn The semi-for-mal evening featured a creativebatch of northwest chefs who metand exceeded the challenge ofpreparing a four course meal plusdessert featuring Oregon truffles

adapt-From Portland’s Park Kitchen, tive chef Scott Dolich prepared a firstcourse of black truffle cauliflowerpolonaise and salt cured eggs ChefRocky Maselli of Eugene’s renownedMarché restaurant followed withKampachi crudo with celery rootslaw, uni vinaigrette and shavedwhite truffles The third course, pre-pared by Chef Gabriel Rucker of Le

execu-Pigeon, Portland, sented Rabbit & Blacktruffle spanakopita, pro-sciutto and arugula.The main entrée high-lighted a black truffleboudin blanc with braisedcabbage and confit ofwhite truffle fingerling po-tatoes prepared by JohnGorham of Toro Bravo Andwho said truffles aren’t fordessert? Chef Cheryl Wak-erhauser of Pix Patisserie inPortland, delighted all in at-tendance with a trufflemignardise plate (a sam-pling of French confectionsfeaturing Oregon truffles).Trekking through Oregon’sfoothills to harvest ripened trufflesfor the kitchens of imaginative chef-magicians has proved once and forall that our state is on the cusp ofculinary grandeur

pre-Oregon wines have won tional awards, and it won’t be longuntil Oregon truffles compete with thetruffles of France, Italy and China asthe culinary world demands qualityluxury produce But the flying squirrelsfigured that out a long time ago

interna-WHEN YOU GO

Check the OTF website for future dates,events and special truffle-related pack-ages at www.oregontrufflefestival.comOregon Truffle Festival, Valley RiverInn, Eugene, Oregon, January 29–31,2010

Eugene-based freelance writer, Marcie nell , is proud to be an Oregonian with the requisite webbed digits and ability to commu- nicate with water fowl For that reason, un- earthing the mystique of Oregon truffles was

Bush-a wBush-alk in the gBush-arden of eden for her HBush-appy hunting and bon appétit!

“Call them a winter crop, because they tend to come to fruition between November and February with January often the month to grab your dog, your truffle fork and your

sense of adventure.”