When I tell people that I moved to Oregon in part for the almost year-round mushroom season, their eyes generally glaze over.
But get a load of this, you crazy supermarket shoppers — a couple of pounds of spring white truffles unearthed from a private forest in the heart of the Willamette Valley wine country.
The whites don’t smell as earthy and pungent right out of the ground as the blacks, but should ripen for a few weeks until they have a slightly garlicly, herbal smell to them.
I only kept half a dozen of the ones I found — including a raquetball-sized monster I dug up almost immediately — because if you read about my last truffle adventure, you know that I almost truffled myself out by taking on the challenge of cooking with them every night.
But if you’re eating at the Joel Palmer House some time in the next few weeks, chances are good that you’re downing a truffle I’ve touched.
I don’t think I’m an expert at the truffle hunt. But I do feel like I’m developing a sixth sense for where they might be located in the forest. I found my humungo truffle by following my instinct, raking around in a 10-ft. square spot because I know there just had to be something there.
Truffles are totally magic.
[...] last spring, when Oregon’s spring black truffles were in bloom. I later joined him for a white truffle hunt – the result of which is a longish feature story and profile, out this week in the latest [...]