Truffles on Steroids

Leucangium brunneum the Oregon brown truffle

Look what Maggie the WONDER Dog found for me today! We only had one little training session in my living room playing hide and seek with a film canister with some Leucangium carthusianum (Oregon black truffle) inside and she did pretty well finding it hidden in the couch, behind pillows, on the book shelf etc.

So, today we took to the woods and I said "where's the truffle Maggie" "get the truffle" and within a minute she was sniffing a spot not far from where we walked in, right up to the stem of a fern and right there was a black truffle. A few minutes later she was stopped at another spot sniffing so I uncovered the spot where she sniffed and WOW look at this honker!

Leucangium brunneum

We then did some walking and I just kept my eye on her and a few minutes later she was sniffing right up against a tree so I went over to it and this is what I found poking up out of the ground!!


This one is even bigger than the first one!

This one is a bit critter eaten but they are both firm and RIPE! I have no idea what to do with them. If any of you readers out there have any experience with Oregon brown truffles, what would you suggest I make with them?

They have an entirely different aroma from white or black truffles and are quite strong smelling. Kind of a combination of broccoli cheese soup and garlic..with some cauliflower thrown in.



Good girl, Maggie, you get a BIG treat!

Truffle Season

It is not hard to be totally and incurably enamored and smitten with truffles and all there is to do with truffles. I for one can't seem to get them out of my head. I want to forage for them, cook with them, read about them, grow them, you name it. I think it has to do with the mystique of this knobby little fungi that grows underground where you can't see them and have to understand your surroundings well enough to know where to look for them and then find them.

These days the best way to forage for truffles is to have a well trained dog who can sniff out the ripe truffles so you are only harvesting the cream of the crop. Here in Oregon using dogs for truffling is barely heard of and is only being done by a scant few. Hopefully in the near future this trend will catch on and more and more people will utilize the keen senses of our friend the dog who can sniff out the ripe truffles and leave the unripe to be harvested another day.

I managed to get out over the weekend with a friend and of course Maggie the Wonder Dog and forage for Oregon black truffles Leucangium carthusianum and the Oregon winter white truffle, Tuber oregonense. We managed to find some of both which made me very happy. I was quite pleased to find out that Maggie seems to have an instinctual nose for truffles as well. It wasn't like she was running around with her nose to the ground, having had no training whatsoever, but my friend was peeling back the duff in one area and gently raking to see what was under the duff and Maggie came over to a spot very near where he was working and started to sniff the ground pretty intently. He took his rake and peeled back the duff and there was a black truffle! Way to go Maggie! Now that I have some ripe truffles on hand I'm going to start a formal training program with her to try to get more results in the field.

Oregon truffles have had a bad rap for some time now due to commercial harvesters harvesting and selling unripe truffles, which in turn have been sold to distributors and ended up in stores throughout the country and sold to unsuspecting people as an inferior and unripe product.
This needs to stop. Truffles need to be at least horticulturally ripe when harvested in order to continue the ripening process at home and bring them to full ripeness for culinary uses. Too many truffles are being raked up and sold unripe and will never get ripe due to not being horticulturally ripe when picked. The only way to ensure full ripeness when picking is to have a keen truffle dog that can sniff out only the ripe ones. So, it only makes sense that if you are going to train a dog to detect ripe truffles, you only use ripe truffles while training. You would think that was a given, but you'd be surprised at what goes on out there.

Anyway, back to the truffles at hand. The lovely Oregon black truffles have an aroma unlike any other truffle I've ever smelled. Like a glass of fine red wine, you can detect hints of familiar scents. When I sniff a ripe Leucangium carthusianum I get hints of pineapple, chocolate, mango, more sweet smelling and fruity things. This truffle can be used in dessert dishes according to its ripeness. Much to the contrary with the Tuber oregonense I get a heady, earthy, garlicky, intoxicatingly rich and pungent aroma that will fill your entire house, refrigerator, freezer etc. and all its contents with its powerful yet delicious stench. (I mean that affectionately)

In the coming days I will be preparing some dishes using these truffles and will post the results here so stay tuned.

Truffles, Morels and Asparagus, Oh MY!

My little pal Maggie (border collie) and I took a quick road trip from southwest Montana to Oregon this last week for a taste of spring. When we left home, the leaves on the trees had not even opened yet and it had been cold. I couldn't take one more day of looking out the window at naked trees and a colorless palette so off we went in search of forests, foods and friends, doing the entire drive in one day...some 780 miles or so!



The next day my friend Janette took me to a private property of a friend of hers to dig truffles. We tried all morning to get Maggie the wonder dog into truffle mode showing her what they looked like and having her sniff them and then rewarding her with liver cookies....she loved the cookies...not so much the truffles! Within only a few minutes of arriving at the hallowed spot, we started finding them. This was my first foray into the field of truffles and I was very excited to say the least.

After hearing my friends talk about truffle hunting all winter it was finally going to me my turn! So we gently lifted up moss and peaked underneath and there they were those adorable little nuggets just waiting for us to find them.







Maggie kept us herded up, we herded up the truffles and then headed out to say hi to the owner and then go check out some morel spots.

We never did have any luck tromping around in logged areas but I did see some indicators that they may be coming. I'm not used to walking in logged areas so it's not my forte. I feel at home walking in burns from previous forest fires to pick morels and so I still wanted to go check a burn on the eastern side of Mount Hood.

A few days later after we spent some time prepping for and throwing a party for Janette's friends and colleagues, we headed on an all day excursion over to Mount Hood and beyond to this burn I wanted to see. We finally got there after a long drive and right out of the car, one step into the burn and I spotted my first morel! Wow, what a great feeling. Then another and another...well, long story short, they were there, but not in great quantities at least at the level we were looking. The problem was the spot was very, very steep terrain and we would need to be 3/4 billy goat to make it up that hill. So, we traversed back and forth zig zagging and picking a few morels and even drove up the road looking for another spot. Unfortunately, we could tell it had already been picked pretty hard and unless we were willing to go trekking up that cliff, we were not going to find many morels. Also, that was the day it decided to get incredibly hot, into the upper 80's to low 90's so it was tough going. We managed to find enough for a feast however, so decided to head home.



Oh, did I say feast? Yep...we made a pizza with caramelized onions, ribeye steak and morels...oh and popcorn smothered in melted butter and grated truffles...super yum....(did I mention Janette is opening a restaurant in Dallas, Oregon? L'Attitude Point One check it out soon)

Well, after a full week of foraging for mushrooms and playing with friends, it was time to head home. The weather had turned to stifling hot with temps up to 100 (so it said on my car thermometer) as I drove along the Columbia River Gorge on Saturday afternoon. That's just too hot for anything! We spent the night in a motel in Conner, WA and I could just see it on Maggie's face, can we go home now?



The next afternoon, Sunday, we completed the trip back to SW Montana and low and behold, spring had sprung in my absence and the trees had finally opened and all was right with the world once again. Montana experienced some of that heat wave and that was all it needed to kick spring into full speed ahead.



We stopped on the way from town to my house and checked my local wild asparagus spots that were all starting to produce, so in about 5 minutes I had picked a pound of fresh wild asparagus and was going home with my fresh oysters I got at the Portland Farmers Market on Saturday morning, my bag of truffles, bag of morels and all kind of goodies I bought along the way so it was going to be one of those I'm happy to be home, let's party moments. I chilled a nice dry rose, opened the oysters, cooked some asparagus and made a little creamed morels over toast points and sat on my redwood deck enjoying the beautiful leafy green cottonwood trees that came out to play while I was gone. Life is good and so is having great friends to play with, good food and a place to lay your head at night. Home sweet home.

Claremont Country Estate and Limestone Hills

I spent the night in the cottage on Gareth and Camilles' property and then in the morning I went over to the property next door which just happened to be Claremont Country Estate. Gareth arranged with the owners Richard and Rosie Goord, to go out on their private Land Rover "Safari" over the 2,400 acre estate and nature reserve to see some history regarding the limestone cliffs and the hidden prehistoric treasures found inside.

A big attraction at Claremont is the chance to see God's Marbles – massive round limestone boulders dating from the age of the dinosaurs. About 15 million years ago, God's Marbles began to form. Erosion by river, sun and rain has gradually exposed these boulders, which have tumbled down into the riverbed. They can weigh more than seven tons. If I remember corectly, they are more like pearls which are calcium carbonate that formed around dinosaur bones and like a pearl began to grow. So, everywhere you see one of these "pearls", there is a dinosaur bone hidden inside somewhere. How cool is that?


"Claremont also contains rock-solid proof of the disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs. About 65 million years ago, a meteor or asteroid collided with the Earth, striking the Yucatan peninsula near Mexico with the force of a major nuclear detonation. The resultant debris blocked out light and heat, causing mass extinction.
Evidence for this can be found at Claremont in the KT boundary, a layer of rust-streaked rock rich in iridium, an element found in meteorites. This is one of the most visible KT boundary sites on Earth. Dinosaur fossils exist below the line, but none above."


Anyway, after a truly fascinating tour of the high country sheep station, deer farm and my geology lesson for the day, I took off for Akaroa. I drove back through Christchurch and then out to the Banks Peninsula all the way to the end to Akaroa, a little French fishing village. More on that later.