Our Truffle

I am a black truffle. I am the crack cocaine of fungi.



When the truffle showed up Friday, I took a look and told my wife "Your truffle is here."

She corrected me: "Our truffle."

That was when I realized just how much the truffle must have cost. But now I was down for half, so already a savings had been achieved.

A truffle is a particularly tasty fungus, an uber-mushroom. This was a black truffle. Had I been taking a walk in the forest with a small child and had I spotted "our" truffle lying on the ground, I would have said, "Look, honey. Animal poo."

But truffles do not lie on the ground. In Europe pigs and dogs sniff them out, so it is said.You have to dig, or, in our case, order them via the Internet.

The flavor of the black truffle and of the white truffle is pungent and delicious. Oliveto's in north Oakland has a week of truffle dinners in the fall. This has been one of our yearly "special occasions," but now that we are spending our late November wedding anniversary in San Francisco, it seems we are going to have a single special occasion in November.

My wife, however, apparently yearns for the taste of truffle, or so I judge. It was not "our" truffle until I opened the package. I was not privy to the actual decision-making. I was not part of the process.

This morning we had scrambled eggs with truffles, the whipped eggs having sat overnight, truffle fragments therein.

I calculate those were the most expensive scrambled eggs I have ever had. That's my guess. In marriage, there are some things that should remain a mystery.