New Year's Day, 2009

A bit of champagne and an experimental Oregon truffle. A tad disappointing in fact. Bought it from Madison's in Findlay Market, who kept it cool on the refrigerated shelf, packed in a little tub of rice. Now whether we stored it improperly in the fridge, or Oregon truffles are a just a lesser breed, the result was not at all like an Italian truffle. The fungus among us was rather spongy—scarcely to be shaven. The disappointing texture led to thoughts of using it a risotto, which lead to the following SHOCKING DISCOVERY. We had at one point something like four kilos of arboro rice—vacuum-packed in 500 gr. blocks. It had all disappeared. Now the mice (mouse) that have moved in for winter seem adventuresome (overly) but sneaking off with four kilos of rice, grain by grain, seems grandiose. We have no idea where all that rice went.
We fell back on plain ol' spaghetti, coated with olive oil and the truffle, which proved in the end not to be very pungent or flavorful.
Our verdict for Oregon: pinots, yes; truffles, no. Rain, no; Wagner, so totally no.