Oregon Truffles at Ferry Farmers Market

The weekend when Jack and I visited my parents in San Francisco was cold and clear. We went to the Ferry Farmer's market where I became overwhelmed by the number of stands and had a breakfast's worth of free samples. In the Ferry building, we stopped at the Far West Fungi store and gave into temptation, buying a couple of Oregon truffles. In retrospect, I don't remember if they were white or black. With all the truffle oil we've been using, plus my discovery of Cypress Grove's "Truffle Tremor" cheese (all the goodness of Humboldt Fog cheese with flecks of black truffle), we were blindsided. That night, we made a feast, with breaded mustard and rosemary lamb chops, steak in a red wine sauce, and mushroom risotto. We placed thinly sliced pieces of truffle on top of the risotto.

The verdict: the truffles were very subtle in the risotto, almost indiscernable. I had to constantly sniff to catch a whiff of truffle. We left one truffle in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, the whole refrigerator reeked of truffles, and when I opened the container, my mother, standing three feet away, made a face and waved the air around. After poking around on the internet, it appears the truffle had ripened overnight. It's unfortunate that we didn't cook with the ripened truffle that day, as we fled down I-5 that afternoon. But now we know that truffles may be best when ripened, and know where to find them for a relatively reasonable price.