You geography nazi have nothing to add to my truffle desire but to correct my DC geography problem? I stand corrected but think that Wesley Heights is ...oh never mind must think food not real estate. Procured a beautiful 4 rib dry aged hunk or rib eye for the holiday.

Here here. Black truffles this year weren't that great until late last month. $25 wholesale isn't bad for Burgundies (blacks) but awfully high for summer truffles considering they've not developed any fragrance at that time. The price for the same winter truffle skyrockets the week prior to Christmas all b/c of demand and marketing. (Yay, marketing! ) And honestly, $1250/lb for black truffles is a freaking joke. How much profit do they want to make anyways?

I would say the black truffles pictured on the post along the bottom row are about two ounce size. A one ounce truffle is the size of a small walnut.

As for the white truffle that "tasted like cardboard" that most likely did *not* come from Italy - I would say Croatia, especially if that truffle was unnaturally white and clean looking.

That Wegman's truffle was probably on its last leg when it was purchased; truffles last about shy of a week if they were bought fresh and properly kept. Try not to store them with too much rice as the truffles need a wee bit of moisture. The best way to store them is loosely wrapped in a paper towel and in a glass bowl with a glass lid.

I would try to go the restaurant route, if you have connections. You'll be able to get the better quality and hopefully a better price. Good luck!

(Sorry for the somewhat rambling post, just wanted to address several points at once.)

Anyone else in awe and envy of Gastro's truffle knowledge?

Thanks, hillvalley, you're too kind! Truth be told, I gained my knowledge via blood, sweat and tears. Literally.

Also, size is not an indicator of quality. It looks great to shave (or as P. Diddy said to the waiter at Daniel in NYC, "Shave that b****!". For shizzle.) tablesize but sometimes the smaller tennis ball or golf ball sized white truffles are more pungent.

If you do choose to purchase a black truffle, make sure that it doesn't have any holes or cracks, that it's not too dry, and that they're very dark and when you press it, it's not rock hard. Of course when buying either type of truffle, you should be able to smell it before you crack open the container. Hell, at the height of the season, if you sell truffles, you walk away smelling like them at the end of the day!

And definitely don't buy it at a grocery store where it's been sitting under lights in a warm case with way too much rice. That probably contributed to the rotting truffle from Wegman's as well. (By the way, the retail level gets the "second" grade of truffles. Restaurants, especially the high end ones, get first pickin' of the best of the litter.)

*edited for grammar and other whatnots

Whole Foods on Rockville Pike has Oregon Black truffles... 1ounce for $29.99. In the produce section packed in rice. Anyone tried these?

Don't bother. If you're gonna do the truffles, do 'em right. Try to find out who the D'artagnan sales rep is for the Washington, D.C. area restaurants and ask if you can purchase truffles from them.

A very polite and enthusiastic lady named Gloria, who hangs out behind the cheese counter at the Spring Valley/Wesley Heights/AU Park/Forrest Hills Balducci's, special ordered about 2.5 ounces of black truffles at $80/oz for us, just before Christmas. The two truffles were about the size of a golf ball, a little gnarlier than the ones that the chefs probably get but clean, fragrant enough to gross out the kids and quite tasty.

The first night, we scored some pizza dough at Vace (ours would have been better, but time did not permit) and and some fontina from Gloria and made a couple white pizzas, each perfectly sized to support two eggs fried sunny side up and generous shaving of the truffles, and four of us snarfed up the resulting gooey mess (based on a CityZen app) with a great deal of enthusiasm.

For Christmas day we chopped up about another three-quarters of an ounce and devoted that to Boudin Blanc de Noel, from what should be the most annoying cookbook ever, but isn't, Madeleine Kamman's When French Women Cook.* We lost a small bit of the truffle to some sort of truffle rot -- possibly hastened by storing the truffles at room temperature -- but had plenty to serve six people with some excellent leftovers. Basically, you grind chicken breast, finely diced mushrooms, butter, cream and truffles together and then stuff them in whatever casings you have lying around, poach the resulting links and then gently fry them for serving. Next time we may try to find a way to wedge some duck liver in with the fungus, chicken and dairy products, and maybe our take on whatever it is Weidermayer serves his boudin with, but the boudin stand up pretty well on their own.

I just checked, and there's still enough truffle left for a very serious dinner for two tonight, perhaps we'll just scramble up a couple of the eggs it's resting in in the slow French fashion (over boiling water) that always seems a little ridiculous to me unless there are truffles involved.

*I generally have a low tolerance for cookbooks that talk too much, whether it's Bourdain's silly swaggering in the Les Halles Cookbook; Ruhlman-penned paeons to rabbit killing and upright fish in The French Laundry Cookbook or Judy Roger's repeated flashbacks to her years with the Troisgros clan in Zuni. I mean, just shut up and cook. By this measure, When French Women Cook should be the worst offender of all. The premise of the book is that it shares reciped learned at the feet of a series of women with whom Kamman lived as a girl and young woman in France, each from a different region: Mimi in Savoie, Claire in Tourain and so on. Thus each chapter starts with a little story about the women and their impossibly picturesque hearths, tales of mushroom-gathering and cheese-making and so on, and is followed up by a series of regional recipes. Somehow Kamman -- whom one suspects takes no prisoners and is fun to drink with -- spins these tales without using eye-rolling levels of treacle. The recipes are excellent, while also serving as a basic primer on the differences of French regional cooking. And, if you like a little backstory with your cookbook, it may be perfect.

NYT article last month about a plant pathologist in Tennessee who has gained attention for successfully cultivating Perigord black truffles in his backyard.

I open my May issue of Gourmet and find an article that purports there are truffles to be found in the Saudi desert. Some white, some dark. A parenthesis explains that this "truffle" is biologically liitle different from " its Wester cousin, though a Saudi agronomist... says the electrical charges [from] lightnening storms...make the truffles lighter in taste." In Arabic they are called fagaa and are highly prized. Anyone know if they compare to a Perigord, or are ever exported? I can't believe that this fungus from the desert has anything remotely in common with the one found nestled near an oak tree in SE France.

Whatever you do, don't buy black truffles at Dean & Deluca in Georgetown. They're trying to pass off old summer truffles as winter black truffles... AND, they won't refund your money when you take home the truffles, slice one, find a light-colored inside, and then call them on it. I just spoke to someone at D&D HQ who said this is not the first time they've gotten this complaint about this store.

Guess it's back to Urbani for me...

What's with the Italians and truffles?

December 2007: One of the biggest truffles (1.5kg/3.3lb) found in decades has fetched $330,000 (£165,000)...
November 2005: A truffle weighing 1.2kg (2.6lb) has sold for 95,000 euros ($112,000; £64,000) at an international charity auction in Italy.

Knick knack paddy whack... give that dog a very big bone

Arrowine is currently advertising white truffles at $279/oz., black truffles at $69.99/oz., and Burgundy truffles at $49.99/oz. (all range from 0.75 to 1.5 oz.). Order by 5 pm Tuesday for Thursday delivery. I haven't ordered any, so can't vouch for the quality.

The Wegman's in Sterling, Virginia has them for sale.

I "heard" this year's harvest is not up to standard from previous years, and the "best" are being kept in Europe this year. Unsubstantiated, but would like to pass this along.

I hope I do not deter you from buying.