Is This Thing On? by annie newman

Schleppin' 'Cross the Wilderness

"Wait. Is there gonna be a test on this?"

We don't like to make comments about our friend JC, who is a very smart man and much larger than ourself. But the man complains a lot. He truly does.

Last night, f'r'instance, he was Twittering from his seder. which already is going to get on God's nerves. But it might have been okay if his tweets has consisted of comments like : "This haroseth is incredibly yummy" or "Memo to self-do not actually eat bitter herbs".

Instead, we heard nothing but complaints.

"Let my people go...out for a sandwich!"

"My stomach is rumbling so loud it drowned out two choruses of 'Dayanu'!"

"I swear to God that hard-boiled egg is a gonner if I don't get some brisket within the next five minutes!"

The fact is...and anyone who has seen The Ten Commandments can bear me out on this...the Exodus was not a journey for sissies.

First of all, we (not just ourself this time, we mean all the Jewish people) had to leave the house without packing. Our own mother, never a vain woman, couldn't leave the house without fifteen minutes of makeup and hairdressing, and, as to some of our more princessy friends, we think they would rather be caught by Pharoah's henchmen than be seen in their gear from spinning class. So already the complaints would start.

Our bff La Skolnique ("Chava the Peacemaker") would have to run back twice to see she had turned off the stove (had the camel pee on the fire) underneath the tzimmes. Which no one would eat anyway, because it looked like mortar and reminded them too much of work.

JC (or, as he would have been known in Biblical times, "Joshua the Fresser") would have demanded to be carried aloft by his handmaidens, claiming some old stonelaying injury; his comments ("So who told you to bring the half-baked bread? Half-baked gefilte fish would have been okay but why the bread? Did anyone remember the half-fermented wine?") would make his wife and child beg for Egyptian citizenship.

You see how tiresome this would get? And he wouldn't be the only one. 

Our brother, Pesche With the Open Mouth, would be lecturing his adorable two sons (Sholem the Pure and Mordecai the Yeller) about the true meaning of the holiday, whilst his wife, Judith the Balabusta, would illustrate with healer-approved tub toys.

"Did anyone bring noseplugs? I've got a deviated septum!"

Over at our part of the caravan, we ("Hannah the Unpaid") would be trying to comfort our Beautiful Daughter ("Tauba the Annoying"...once you start these things it's really difficult to stop)...while we searched high and low for her father, "Baruch the Messy", who, we hoped, brought her prescription manna.

Our only point here is that Passover could be a lot worse, so everyone pipe down and pass the affikomen. And if you don't know what that is, you weren't on the Exodus anyway. You get to tell the jokes on Sunday.

Like Mike

This is Michael Ruhlman, a writer.

He is, for we love to put first things first, a truly nice-looking guy.

Second, he is a good writer. He mostly writes about food but has also written about Boys, Houses, and small sailing craft.

He is one of these people who can look at a very small thing and then talk (or write) about it for hours.

A stoner. No, wait, we didn't mean that. A WRITER.

We would like to write as well as Mr. Ruhlman. So we are going to follow Ruhlman's rule, which decrees that the best way to become a good writer is to write every day.

We're going to write it here and we're going to write it short and illustrate it profusely, so it ought to be easy to read and very quick. We know you're a busy person.

Check back often. And, this for the foodies in the (incredibly small) audience, we are not going to follow Ruhlman's other rule, which, if codified, would go something like: "You are a fake foodie if you do not create your own veal stock. Veal stock is food magic and anyone with a functioning neurological system, like you don't even need a brain, can put it together from roasted veal bones and h2o. If you do not make your own veal stock, you are nothing but a stooge."

Yes. Well. We buy ours from Eli Zabar.

Truffiverous

Like we had nothing better to do, we suddenly find that we have fallen deeply and passionately in love with truffles.

Not the ones to the right. (We've been in love with them for years, but there's no news value in that.)

No--the truffles which we love (to which we have become devoted, for which we will bankrupt ourself, with which we wish to have our tombstone decorated every August 29th) are the real thing, the fungi which grow, without root or branch, imbedded in the earth near some (but not all) oak trees.

They cannot be planted and they cannot be predicted. When you want to find a truffle (and you don't happen to be standing in the cheese department at Eli Zabar's massive gourmet supermarket in Manhattan) you need to find, first, a well-trained dog or pig (you heard us), and then a forest with a lot of oak trees in it.

(It helps if you, the pig, and the forest are all either French or Italian.)

Then you let the dog or pig sniff a bit of truffle in your hand. Then you let the dog or pig run around for a while. Eventually, the animal will be found digging at the roots of an oak tree, where you will find a truffle.

If you are using a dog, we suppose that he will be found peeing on certain oak trees, which may or may not mean that there is a truffle there, but probably does mean that even if it's there you won't want it.

Anyway. If you're very lucky, the truffle will look like this:

You will clean it and then rush it to market, where quaintly-dressed local merchants will scream "Sacre bleu!" or "eh, Maddon'!", depending, and you will receive a great deal of money, and probably you won't get a taste of the truffle. Which will be OK by you, because they probably give you gas.

Soon, your truffle will find itself in one of the finest kitchens in New York or Paris, being sliced thin enough to see through and then being sprinkled on pasta or grilled cheese for an extra $60.

And what does it taste like, this truffle? Or--to put it in a more succinct way--is it worth it?

In our opinion, yes it is worth it, because it tastes a little like garlic, but mild and richly lingering. 

It tastes nothing at all like any mushroom we've ever eaten, so we don't understand why the taste is sometimes described as "mushroomy". 

It makes eggs, cheese, and cream taste like larger quantities of truffles, so that is how we like it best; we don't think a truffle can add much to meat or fish. (As a cream, egg, or cheese sauce over chicken it is excellent).

At its very best, truffle tastes the way someone smells when you absolutely adore them and they are just about to kiss you.  So a truffle tastes not just like a good kiss, but a great one.

May your 2009 be filled with truffles...or may it be filled with whatever and whoever you love.