November 20th, 2009 by Bob Klein
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The truffle dinners are now in full swing and going very nicely, but I wanted to provide a brief wrap-up of this year’s trip to Italy. Monti-in-Chianti, about 10 miles north of Siena, has been the center of my activities since I began traveling to Italy (over ten years ago) to get truffles, and Giorgio Sacchini and his family have been…
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November 13th, 2009 by Bob Klein
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It’s Thursday night here, and all the truffles for Oliveto’s truffle dinners are still in the ground; collection begins tomorrow morning. It’s cold, there’s been a good amount of rain, and the local truffle fairs have ended. Now, the truffles are for us. Truffle Dinners at Oliveto are booking up, so we’ve decided to extend them through Saturday, November 21st. I’ll bring home more truffles than…
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November 9th, 2009 by Bob Klein
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Truffles are just now coming on, I encountered my first exceptional truffles last night, at the back door of Ristorante Antine in Barbaresco–I didn’t have to put my nose to it, it overwhelmed me from across the kitchen. Prices remain very low, we won’t be able to set the price for Oliveto Truffle dinners until we actually acquire them, but they should be…
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November 4th, 2009 by Bob Klein
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It’s still ten days or so before I move from the “just looking” phase into truffle acquisition, but here’s what we know so far: the truffles this year are very good, but not plentiful. Despite fewer truffles, prices are dramatically lower than they have been in recent years due to less demand and also many truffles coming from…
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November 2nd, 2009 by Bob Klein
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A very healthy rain arrived in Italy about a week before I did, somewhat improving truffle conditions after another very dry year. The last few days have been beautiful, but we seem to be moving into another rainy period which is good timing for truffle hunting, as long as it doesn’t get too wet.
Here is a video of some of Georgio’s new recruits, five-week-old truffle dogs. They are…
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September 24th, 2009 by Bob Klein
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I’ll be leaving for Italy mid-October and returning on November 16th, I presume, with a load of fine truffles to be served during our annual Truffles Dinners (November 17 – November 20, 2009). From the memory-lane-archives we’ve compiled a reel of Oliveto truffle stories covered by local and national television news networks over the past twelve years…
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