What Fills My Plate

     I am afraid that this post will sound like an advertisement for truffles and the Motovun Truffle Festival.   I must admit that I am not an expert on food, nor truffles,  On this subject I feel more like a redneck who blundered into a beer and crawdad festival.   Previously, most of my experience with truffles is like a kid window shopping for toys at Christmas.  My experience has been more like  field testing for flavors I have never known to exist.  However, I will try my best to give a straightforward analysis of the whole affair.      This has been one of the best weekends I have had all year!  We have had some great ones.  Reviewing the weekend my mind has indulged itself, lingering over long moments of a taste so warm and filled with the  sudden sensation of glorious contentment.  It was that good!      Finding almost nothing but short critiques on the festival on th...

     I am calmly sitting at my table, waiting for a steaming plate of wild boar, called cinghiale,  nestled on a small pile of soft polenta.   Sipping my wine, and reasoning like a kid who suddenly realizes because ol’ Santa could not possibly deliver all those presents to the whole world,  I consider how many hunters and wild boars would be needed to furnish all the restaurants in Italy that feature wild boar every day.        Later I posed this question to my buddy, Alfonso, who has an agritourismo restaurant in the hills outside of Padova.  His answer delivers a crushing blow to my romantic view of Italy.  I am told those so called wild boars are a sham, fradulently labeled as wild, but instead raised on a farm.   (The word for swindlers in Italian is truffatori.)   Consider that wild boar is served in some Italian restaurants in the states.  Are they importing?  A waiter who writes on a blog called ...

            Soon we will be joining carloads of foodie worshipers headed down the autostrada to visit the Truffle Festival in the small village of Motovun, Croatia.  This area’s forests are famous for the malodorous fungus known as the white truffle of which these are said to be of the highest quality.   October and November are said to be the months where the most truffles of quality are found.   These truffles were known throughout history, especially used by both the Greeks and Romans.  The Istrian truffles from the Montovun area were featured in a television show on Croatia by Anthony Bourdain.      Local producers will be showing their largest mushrooms, liqueurs, wine, crafts and cheese.  I have read that if you pay a fee of 20 kn you can have a non-stop guzzling of wine, and there will be demonstrations of cooking with truffels.  Free tasting is ncluded after the demonstrations.  Somewher...

       American television shows are shown in Italy, but they are years behind the actual date.  Most are older shows such as Hawaii Five 0, Ironside and The Simpsons.  All are repeated constantly,  but the best shows are related to food and travel.         We watched Anthony Bourdain visit Tuscany and attempt to make a pasta for a young group of Toscani friends.  Bourdain should have been alerted that they would never appreciate his pasta.   (My wife says that the whole thing is probably staged.)   We see him nervously prepare everything and cooking it, making sure it is al dente but tweeking it with a few new components.  He did not realise that trying something new with pasta would not be pleasing to Italians.   Italians do not seem to enjoy innovation but instead consider it an annoyance.   Adulteration is out!   The word “purists” would correctly describe them.  The result of ...

           Remember when you were at the circus and the tiny Italian car drives into the center ring and one after another men keep coming out of the car?  Fooling you into wondering, how many more?  And  they keep coming!!   This is much like my life struggling with the Italian Driving Exam.      I have been studying for the driver exam for many months.   It  has been developed over the years by a group of whom I believe to be a scheming and deceitful bunch of question makers.   The exam has been created at a  level of the Italian language which is a much  higher level than my Italian language school.  I am not a teenager, I have driven for years the freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco and never had an accident or been stopped for bad driving.  However, here in Italy I have had to spend a great amount of time with the Italian driver exam.  For months many of the things...

         It is October 5, and I have walked to my usual bar every morning I carry my laptop with which I  study for the Italian driver exam.  If you walked into this bar you would know me right away.  I am the only person with a jacket hanging on the back of the chair.   I am the only person not wearing scarf.   I am in short sleeves, and I  am here for the long haul nursing my Coffee Americano. I refuse to give up summer easily.  I am hard-core!      You see, just two weeks ago, as if a starter shot his gun off to announce winter, all Italians made the fundamental decision to begin wearing coats and scarves.   Even if the sun comes out and makes the day extra warm they, in a “one for all all for one spirit”,  remain wrapped up like Eskimos.  Once inside the bar, Italians never take their jackets and scarves off when seated.  Almost all of the customers will be leaving this watering hole ...

         During my University days my trumpet professor, James Whitlow, talked about his sabbatical trip to Germany and going to Octoberfest. At the time he  sparked my interest in attending the festival, enjoying the music and doing a little beer tasting, and so long ago I put it on my bucket list.   So when we received a flyer ,from a tour operator offering an overnight trip to Octoberfest ,we were interested.   The tour operator was also  proposing a side trip to the famous castle called Neuschwanstein.  We could not pass this up!      On the the day before the grand opening of Octoberfest, we wait in a small parking lot north of Verona.. The bus arrives from Milano packed with Italian beer aficionados.  We will drive through the night stopping several  times as per the rules of the Euro Zone require a rest to the bus driver.     Tourist buses that are used to transport people in Italy are ...