Truffle farm update - Spring 2009

All has been quiet on the truffle farm in the past year. After the devastation caused by marauding sheep in the summer of 2007, we found ourselves hoping for some buds on replanted trees this year. Thankfully, we caught the sheep owner and were reimbursed for much of the damage.

Now that the last winter's snow has melted, a quick walk of the now-tiny truffle plot revealed about 65 survivors. This is sad because we planted 600 originally, 200 of which were bad to begin with, and 300 of which were grazed and eaten by sheep. But it's a new year and we've got to work with what we've got left...and some new stock. I'm placing an order for 44 last-minute replacement trees to give us an even 100 and some nice, filled-in looking rows.

Once they arrive and are planted we should be on the mend and have a much more manageable plot, safe from wild herds of sheep and other possible predators.

Try explaining trading zebra for truffle farm interest to your tax man...

We went to get our taxes done last night. It was my first year having a "farm loss" and the ever-patient CPA was quite confused as I explained that I traded 1.5 zebras for my mother's interest in the truffle farm. I am fairly certain it was his first farm expense statement combing both zebras and truffles in the same return. Then again, I'm sure it was his first return with either a zebra or a truffle involved. We did the trade so as not to have so many of our investments intertwined now that I'm married, and have a baby and all that good stuff that has happened since the trees arrived.

In other news, a friend in Texas was kind enough to send me a link to THIS GREAT ARTICLE by Peter Alsop on truffle farming in the U.S. It came out this weekend on Salon.com. I had never heard of the magazine before, but the article is extremely well-written so go check it out.

Success and possible truffle-farming nuns

So I heard a rumor that someone who bought truffle-infused hazelnut trees from New World Truffieres (same place we got ours) found their first truffle in their farm just east of Sacramento, California this year. The trees are five year old hazelnuts and I think they have 50 trees. I'm not sure how the quality of the truffle is, who found it, or how, but it's good to know the spore survived.

I also heard the Norbertine Sisters and the Bethlehem Convent here in Tehachapi may soon be receiving a gift in the form of some truffle trees. Seems we've started a trend...

The $330,000 Truffle

I know, it's been a while, again. But this time I have a really good excuse: I've been busy having a baby. Yep, Sarah Addison McQuillen, heiress to the truffle throne of Tehachapi, was born on October 16, 2007. She's healthy, happy, and ecstatic to learn that truffle sales are going strong, having recently reached the $100,000 per pound mark. Seriously.

I'm sure you've all heard that some crazy Macauan billionaire bought a three pound white truffle at an auction for $330,000. Here is the Italian truffle hunter holding the monstrosity and cheering at the auction price:I hope to one day be at a casino in Masau have a picture like that taken of me with a famous Tehachapi truffle. And here is the truffle itself:
I guess it had its own photo shoot. It looks quite unappetizing to me. And what exactly does a person do with a 3.3 pound, $330,000 truffle? I haven't found any news stories on what happened to the truffle but I imagine it's been consumed since they are best eaten fresh.

Truffles in Eastern Sierras in July???

I almost forgot to tell you about this. Hubby Mark and I went up to Tahoe in July to visit family. On the way there we stopped for the night in Mammoth Lakes to break up the drive. Yes, it is a rough life we lead...Mark knew of a nice little restaurant at nearby Convict Lake aptly named, The Restaurant at Convict Lake, so we headed there for dinner. As we perused the menu what do you think we saw?

Chicken Marsala - Penne Pasta

sauteed with roasted red bell peppers, truffles, capers, cremini mushrooms
and finished with asiago and fried basil.....$21.95

That's right - a dish with truffles in it! Truffle snob that I am, I complained that they must be frozen seeing as how the harvest season had long since passed. Mark ordered the dish anyhow and when it came you could definitely smell the pungent propanish-garlicish scent of truffle. I personally couldn't taste them in it and couldn't distinguish between the cremini mushroom slivers and truffle shavings, if any. I'm thinking it may have been truffle oil that was used. It was still pretty good, though.

Incidentally, the restaurant is nice, if a bit pricey. Then again, if the dish had real truffles I guess $21.95 is cheap. Note that they do not, however, serve chocolate milk, and could not figure out how to take the chocolate syrup that is no doubt behind the bar or in the cooler and add it to milk. Forget the truffles, I judge a restaurant by its ability to produce a glass of chocolate milk for me even when it's not on the menu.

The heir(ess) to the truffle kingdom

Those of you who know either of the truffle queens know that the younger of the two has been busy cultivating the heir(ess) to the yet-to-be realized truffle fortune.

Because I'm fat, bored and tired of waddling around chasing sheep, I decided to start a blog on behalf of the soon-to-emerge young truffle farmer (six weeks to go!!!). I added the link to the right, but if you are lazy or confused, you can also click here to learn what Lentil Bean (what we call the baby) is thinking and doing. It's called Lentil Soup and hopefully will have more entertaining fodder than this site. Enjoy!

Yet another reason I don't like sheep.

So I've never liked sheep. They are stupid, sleep in their own poo, smell bad, and are downright annoying. They are so boring people count them to put themselves to sleep. I do, however, enjoy when they come around the rural parts of Tehachapi and graze this time of year, because, really, how many folks can look out their windows and see herds of sheep dotting their hillsides? That was then, this is now...

I was never sure what exactly they were eating since it's so dry until I came home the other night and found about 300 of them being herded out of our yard.

Yep, imagine my surprise when I pulled in to the driveway just in time to see a herd running and stampeding their way off our property. Of course, they took the route right through the truffle farm, which they had apparently already grazed. That's right, the herd got through the herder's fencing and onto the truffle farm. In case you were wondering, this is what a two year old hazelnut tree looks like after a few sheep have had their way with it:No leaves, no tree tube, just a twig sticking out of the ground. Not cool, sheep, not cool.

They didn't actually get all the trees. About 30 are MIA completely, and another 81 look like the example above. They also trampled the irrigation lines so each has to be reset, destroyed about half the tubes and stakes, and generally terrorized the place in no particular order:Seeing as how I was the only witness to the fleeing herd and had just seen CSI: Rural Communities Edition, I spent the next morning assessing damage and collecting evidence. First, I got the hoofprints in the driveway:And still some more hoofprints showing the path of the exodus toward the homestead:And then more distinctive prints near a missing tree:And a few pictures of the rest of my non-truffle crops having been thoughtfully pruned to a height of about four feet. There will be no Christmas jam this year folks:After completing the investigation I filed what may be the first ever "sheep ate my truffle trees" report in North America with local authorities. I'm not sure the deputy understood the gravity of the situation or the fact that he was making truffle history but at least he took the report and it is now probably on the bulletin board at the local sheriff's office next to the extraordinary report of the man who robbed the Circle K with a machete.

I have the phone number of one of the non-English speaking shepherds, the one who was no doubt asleep on the job when said sheep flocked to the estate and trampled it for hours on end. I intend to find the owner and send him a bill for the 111 damages trees, irrigation repair and replacement costs, and damages to my vegetables and fruit around the house. No, they don't know I'm a lawyer. They just think I'm a crazy pregnant woman babbling about expensive mushrooms.

Baaaaad sheep.