hi everyone! happy new year! i took a little holiday hiatus. didja miss me? cause i missed you. honest. so here’s to a wonderful ’08. because i need to tell you how on the last day of ’07 i was totally robbed. yep. i was robbed of my new years eve truffle experience. i went and bought one. a $90 perigord black truffle. and it was a dud. D.U.D. the ‘fine purveyor with the excellent reputation’ got my call on january 2 and was both very fair and kind and a refund has been promised.

i must say that this particular tuberous orb was quite literally: "the unscented truffle extraordinaire". crazy, i know. i usually save unscented for my deodorant hoping for extra scented with my truffles. kinda like a universal balancing act. but not this time. but somehow our dud truffle didn’t really detract from the dish, it just didn’t add anything – to pick out the shavings would have been like removing nothingness. so our new years eve pasta was still wonderful, albeit a bit more bourgeois. it was pasta the way i love it the most. pasta the way mario tells you to eat it. high quality pasta as the main player with the sauce as condiment. laura from ombi was kind enough to make us a batch – a perfect fettucine. not like the frozen egg pasta that needs to be fatter in order to survive the freezer experience. but ‘real deal’ pasta. it got boiled for about 3 minutes and then tossed with an exquisite buttery spanish olive oil, some parmigiano, guerande salt and black pepper. and when it was apparent that my black truffle was sucking wind, i hit the dish with some white truffle oil. and it was just plain excellent.

so, you black truffle you – we needed you not.