Black Gold

Our friends Didier and Anne-Sophie invited us to lunch.  They said it would just be a casse-croute Provençal - literally “breaking crusts” together - so we didn’t expect anything fancy.

Boy, were we wrong.  Our first clue was during the apero.  In addition to the usual olives and radishes there were little toasts covered with a delicious blend of rillettes and foie gras.  Wow, those are each superstars in their own right, but together?  It’s kind of like when Lou Gehrig batted cleanup behind Babe Ruth.

And, hm, what are those little black chunks spread on slices of bread?  Oh la la, truffles.  We were in for a treat.

It seems that Didier is a huge fan of black truffles, the best of which come from Provence.   Truffle hunters search for this treasure each winter and Didier waits until the market is flooded with truffles and the price drops, then swoops in and buys a bunch.  He then jealously hoards them until some unsuspecting truffle lovers like us drop by for a meal.

So our lunch was a truffle extravaganza.  We had scrambled eggs with truffles.  We had little truffle sandwiches.  We had mashed potatoes with truffles.  It was glorious!   We drank fine wines that Didier had chosen because they went especially well with truffles.  Oh, and we also had some delicious confit de canard (duck leg), then a nice strawberry clafoutis Val had made for dessert.

Wow, we were stuffed after all that.  First our big lunch at Atelier for Val’s birthday, now this. 

We definitely need to go for a long bike ride to work off these meals.  Really long.  Like maybe to Finland.

KVS