We crawled out of our beds quite early Friday morning, to join Giovanni and his dogs in the woods.
Giovanni is a retired policeman who now devotes his efforts to finding these little black lumps growing on tree roots underground. Yup, truffles! His dogs sniff them out, then make a "wuffle-grunt" noise when they find the shrooms. Sometimes they dig them up and run to Giovanni with their finds, other times he uses his metal-tipped walking stick to unearth the truffles.Sometimes the dogs also eat the truffles, which is not good (for us). Wild boars also like truffles, and they had dug up the woods in search of them the night before. Probably another reason the Umbrian people like to eat boars so much.
We had... some pretty awesome success though. The dog got a handful of treats for bringing him this one, good doggie!
We had a pretty good haul for only an hour in the woods!
After truffle hunting, we went trout fishing. I caught one! We had a quick (three course) lunch, then headed out for...
Another winery for tastings. This place had some pretty nice wines, and beautiful vineyards. Their most renowned bottle was a 92 point merlot. Yum!
Then we went to dinner. The many wine glasses at my setting were an omen to warn me that there were quite a few courses coming, so I made it one of those "a few bites a plate" kind of dinners, so I wouldn't get painfully full.
Primi: assorted cured meats, a grugere (cheese puff) filled with chicken liver pate, foccacia, pecorino cheese, and procuitto.
Braesola (cured beef) with juniper berries and an asparagus sformato (custard), so good!
Yummy herbed risotto.
Tortelloni filled with ground pork and liver, with cherry tomatoes.
Tagliati (grilled, sliced steak) with grilled veggies. YUM!
A mousse cake, with a chocolate decoration and a small mixed fruit salad. This was nice and light, but really satisfying to end our meal with. Everything we had for dinner, and the wine, was amazing. This was our last organized group field trip, and it was pretty awesome!
We had... some pretty awesome success though. The dog got a handful of treats for bringing him this one, good doggie!
We had a pretty good haul for only an hour in the woods!
After truffle hunting, we went trout fishing. I caught one! We had a quick (three course) lunch, then headed out for...
Another winery for tastings. This place had some pretty nice wines, and beautiful vineyards. Their most renowned bottle was a 92 point merlot. Yum!
Then we went to dinner. The many wine glasses at my setting were an omen to warn me that there were quite a few courses coming, so I made it one of those "a few bites a plate" kind of dinners, so I wouldn't get painfully full.
Primi: assorted cured meats, a grugere (cheese puff) filled with chicken liver pate, foccacia, pecorino cheese, and procuitto.
Braesola (cured beef) with juniper berries and an asparagus sformato (custard), so good!
Yummy herbed risotto.
Tortelloni filled with ground pork and liver, with cherry tomatoes.
Tagliati (grilled, sliced steak) with grilled veggies. YUM!
A mousse cake, with a chocolate decoration and a small mixed fruit salad. This was nice and light, but really satisfying to end our meal with. Everything we had for dinner, and the wine, was amazing. This was our last organized group field trip, and it was pretty awesome!
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