Tentazioni dell'Umbria tartufata products we grabbed up the day before our summer 2006 return flight through Heathrow London in turn only days before the liquid bomb terrorist plot threw a monkey wrench into airport security. The idea was to make a simple sauce for some whole wheat cheese-filled ravioli from Carlino's: cream and shaved truffles, salt and pepper and parmigiano; we expanded on this by sautéing some pressed garlic in 1T each of oil and butter, and adding a little light cream left over in the fridge to warm up, and chopping up about 1oz of the truffles, adding them just before the al dente pasta. Same deal, saute a few pressed garlic cloves in olive oil, just a bit, then dumping in the light colored salsa tartufata, and maybe a half cup of lowfat milkno light cream was in stockand it turned out not to be necessary. 6 pack of 130g "crema tartufata" jars, a bit smaller than the usual "salsa tartufata" (160g or 180g) jars, and made with mushrooms and white truffles instead of black.

They not only market the salsa tartufata on-line (still only 15 bucks a pop), but some interesting new products including tartufo butter, truffle puree and truffle fondue. The result was lighter colorwise and fatwise but no less flavorful. No Alton Brown or Giada de Laurentis for us, but in the other open demo areas program, the Urbani brothers were on only 30 minutes after we entered, so serendipity saved the day. Back at home, we finally break open a small 1.5oz bottle of Urbani shaved black truffles (truffle carpaccio) given to us 2 summers earlier (with an expiration date 6 months later, i.e., expired 1.5 years, but that did not deter us for one moment), determined to break the whole truffle inaction curse. We finish off the whole pound with only salad to break the intake. Produced in Umbria. Not yet available in the US. A new generation of unsuspecting Urbani brothers were plucked out of their ordinary lives and promoted to co-directors of the restructured business: Urbani Truffles USA. We'll have to figure out what to do with the stuff this time. For the first time ever, we actually have some real Urbani bottled truffles given to us by a kind friend in Perugia.

Some freshly ground parmigiano in the sauce, and then on each serving. Wondering why they both mispronounced tagliatelle (tag-li-a-te-lli instead of tal-ya-te-lli), the pasta they used for their truffle demo main course, bob asks Christian after the show about their connection with the Italian company and gets a short version story of their good fortune. On the summer 2002 trip bob gets lucky after an afternoon beach visit with father and son friends who need to pick up dinner on the way home to mom. Too bad our pasta diet is now rather limited due to the carb revolution. Too bad self-importing is the still the only simple way for us to bring these products home. Apparently the New York branch of the family business got so in debt to the mother company in Italy by 2002 that drastic action had to be taken. Well, every family has its less talented (maybe unlucky?) members. We checked back with Urbani USA in 2006. Its website had been down at least a year or more. A plan confirmed by a few minutes of google activity and which met with success in our execution! Looks like something new worth trying and worth transporting, and so cheap!

Looks like another failure. Non pas beaucoup, Haud ita multum. Mme Moreau, en effet, ne le fréquentait pas ; le père Roque vivait en concubinage avec sa bonne, et on le considérait fort peu, bien qu’il fût le croupier d’élections4, le régisseur de M. Dambreuse. L’avantage du chien par rapport au cochon est qu’il est plus habile, son odorat est pointu et surtout, il ne sera pas tenté de manger la truffe. Pendant vingt ans que dura son pouvoir, il combattit toujours avec succès les ennemis de sa patrie : enfin pourtant les Philistins, aidés par la trahison de sa maîtresse Dalila, réussirent à s'emparer de sa personne; il le conduisirent à Gaza et lui crevèrent les yeux. De 1809 produits à la truffe de haute qualité 1812, nouvelle guerre et perte des provinces entre le Dniéper Truffes noires et blanches fraîches le Danube, assurées à la Russie par la paix de Bucharest; en 1819, perte des îles Ioniennes (qui deviennent libres sous protectorat anglais); de l820 à 1830, perte de la Grèce, définitivement affranchie par la victoire de Navarin (1827); perte de partie de l'Arménie turque, cédée à la Russie truffes noires en tranches et huile de truffe blanche 1829; à la suite d'une nouvelle guerre avec la Russie, la Valachie, la Moldavie, la Servie deviennent, parle traité d'Andrinople (1829), libres sauf tribut, et sont placées sous la garantie russe; en 1830, perte de l'Algérie, conquise par la France; en 1833, le pacha d’Égypte lève ouvertement l'étendard de la révolte, conquiert la Syrie, bat les Turcs à Konieh, et menace Constantinople.