‘Tis (Almost) the Season

No, not that season. What kind of crabby, no-holiday-spirit person do you take me for? I mean truffle season, which must clearly be nearly upon us, as the following two things came to my attention in the last two days:

1. The Oregon Truffle Festival has announced its dates and new location for 2008: January 25-27 at the Valley River Inn. The usual array of amazing-sounding, truffle-centric events awaits your nose and palate, including truffle growers’ forums, dinners, wine pairings and more. This year, I totally lucked out and got to go to the Grand Truffle Dinner, which featured course after course of astonishing truffle-involving dishes; I’ve since forgotten which wonderful chef created which dish, but I think the incredible truffle pear tarte tatin with sour cream puff pastry, roasted hazelnuts and truffle honey ice cream was a Marché creation. Anyway, point is, if you’ve got a couple hundred dollars just sitting there and you want to spend it on food? You could do worse.

2. Smithsonian Magazine has an article about Oregon truffle guru Charle Lefevre which, possibly thanks to the magical linking powers of Boing Boing, is currently the site’s most-viewed story. Nice!