Arriverdeci 2004, Bienvenue 2005!

Adieu 2004 – Snapshots from the Year

• Brought in the year with new friends at Magdeburg – some are still around, closer than ever, while other’s drifted out of my life, just as they had drifted in. Kuch pal ke saati the woh…
• Back home after a 3-month hiatus & jumped straight into the rat-race that’s quintessentially Bombay
• Drove down to Bhopal for a wedding – all 5 of us, for a change – met all my aunts & uncles under 1 roof and some cousins and distant relatives I don’t get the opportunity to meet often. Phenomenal trip!
• OvG students came down for a Dharavi project – showed my German & Czech friends around town – Annika, my favourite German stayed back for another month. I still miss seeing her walk around the house in her striped socks, her head bent in concentration as one of us spoke to her!
• M.A II (Eng) examinations, Alliance Francaise III examinations – loads of studying
• Summer vacations – a trip to Ahmedabad and Udaipur (Devigadh) with Kunal, mon cher ami!
• More rendezvous with friends – bidding adieu to them, even as I started packing to shift to Pune with bag, baggage, dog and family! ;-)
• Tears and tantrums and nasty quarrels with one of my most cherished friends, Appu – me getting paranoid that we’ve drifted apart made me insecure and silly. Patched up now (we’ve both grown up!) – and miss her so much. Delhi is too frigging far –away!
• Some really cherished moments spent with Amit this year – won’t be forgetting any of them any time soon. :-)
• Mansi was here in June, for her annual India vacation – ran to Bbay ever so often to spend time with her. Still recall some of those crazy conversations we had in Suku’s 6th floor apartment, while the rain pelted the Bbay streets way into the wee hours of the night. Already waiting for next June!
• Adjusted to this hamlet (Keshavnagar, Mundhwa, Pune) – signed up for Diplome at Alliance Francaise de Poona. (AFP)
• Papa set up the factory of Phoenix Mecano India at Priangut, Pune and it was officially inaugurated on the 9th Nov, 2004. PMI also celebrated its 10th anniversary the next day – with some decent news coverage as well! My father rocks! :-)
• Set up my own room for the first-time – already too accustomed to “my” space -pottering around in my room, using it as a dressing room (who changes in the bathroom anymore?), messing around my antique desk, picking up a book frm my shelves, falling asleep listening to my favourite CDs…
• Loads of problems with AFP – wrecked class schedules, pre-poned exam schedules, class politics, inefficiency and lack of communication – all translated into loads of headaches & Dispirins popping into my mouth way too often for my liking
• Way too many angsty moments for my liking - though alot lesser than the previous two years. So I guess there's been some improvement there!
• More Gyan Better Geets Project – Art and Mythology are just 2 of the things I’ve been reading up on.
• Geebaby has grown to become more than ‘just’ a blog – it’s my baby. It’s an obsession. It keeps me going. It revitalizes me. It opens new worlds for me…
• Caferati – a new chapter in my life. New friends, read-meets, writing & exploring my ‘talents’ – still to decide if there’s enough of that!
• Some really good movies this year – Maqbool, Morning Raga, Khamosh Pani, Raincoat, Hyderbad Blues 2 and a few firang flicks too.
• Stayed as far from the Bollywood fairy-tales as I could, but fell victim to Veer Zara at the year-end.
• Patricia and Bernard visited us for Christmas – they are here for their honeymoon (I couldn’t go for their wedding, despite the invitation and the temptation). Showed them around. Felt good to be with them again this year – last year Xmas was at their homes in Bordeaux!
• Kunal came again to Pune – he’s the only one of all my friends who actually lived up to the threat of piling on, except for Tasu, who has other reasons to visit Pune ;-)
• Oodles of time spent with cousins this year – as some of them made frequent trips to Pune. Rakhi, Diwali, Bhai Duj and New Year’s Eve this year were purely family affairs.

• Looking forward now to 2005, which will start with a short trip to Bangalore, followed by a trip to Delhi (soon, I hope) – and perhaps some more traveling
• We’ll be welcoming a new person into the family in the third week of May – trying to get attuned to the idea of seeing a baby crawling around the house. A play-mate for Schnapps. A new responsibility and a new role for me! :-)
• Have some critical decisions to take next year regarding my career and future – get sweaty palms and headaches thinking about it. Hope it all falls into place. Touchwood.
• Praying that the next year doesn’t bring anymore catastrophes to our nation – let it be a smoother sail all year round, let the sun shine, the rains come, the farms yield good crop and the Gods smile down at us Indians! Let fewer of us fly away to greener pastures, staying back to enrich our own soils. Amen!

On that note, I shall bid adieu a phenomenal year 2004, which has brought many surprises and many changes in my life – good and bad, but mostly good. I look back and see how much I’ve grown and changed in the past one year (and I’m not just talking about the waist-line and hips!) – hope the improvement and growth continues into the next year! Here’s to the coming year – may it bring you all much prosperity, joy and success –much, much, much more than I hope for myself!

Arriverdeci 2004, Bienvenue 2005!

Bombay Hang-over

The year-end has been busy, filled with frantic activity. A cousin in the hospital, operated for gall-bladder stones meant frequent visits to the Command Hospital, Pune, which is like the other side of town for us, followed by visits home while she was convalescing. All this just before my trip to Bombay, which was even more hectic than ever before, was sapping out my energy reserves (not to mention, patience reserves).

Bombay was crazy as ever. Hot and humid, with no sign of winter – I left Pune huddled up in my sweater, wishing I’d worn something thicker, and when I emerged from the car in Bombay I was wishing I’d packed sleeveless stuff – the sweater was definitely not going to be used! Hmm…Bombay after a month. More changes in the area I’ve grown up in – as always I greedily soaked in the sights and smells (yes, even the smells)! It was crazy – having to cancel previously fixed rendezvous in order to spend more time with someone else (flushes guiltily), but it was worth every bit of the exhaustion, sleepless nights and running around trying to reach places at the right time!

Threw caution to the winds and went in for a daring (for me) short step-cut, bidding adieu to the waist-long hair that’s my only vanity…it will be some months before I’ll be able to run a comb down those long heavy tresses and fling them over my shoulder…sure as hell feel light-weighted with half my hair gone! But looks good, if I may so myself – pretty sexy for me! Hehehe! Let’s see how long I enjoy this – probably start pining for my braid within a few days! ;-)

Pop Tate’s is still churning out good food and attracting wanna-bes and groupies and the hep-n-happening – spent a nice lazy afternoon there with Kunu Baba.

Barista Versova hasn’t seen much change except for a new guy at the counter who was actually trying to flirt with me! Actually had me turning around to see if there’s someone behind me – jeepers bleepers – doesn’t he know no one flirts with Plain Jane a.k.a Ice Maiden Geets! ;-)

Spent oodles of time with Amit – getting my bheja-fried and falling prey to his usual tactics at raising my hackles – when will I learn! Smart ass that he is, he sure knows how to get under my skin…but then I adore him for that. Stop complaining Geets – you enjoy every minute of it! ;-) Saw Khamosh Pani at Fame Adlabs and shared more than one Candy-floss. Word of advice – never have more than one Candy-floss on a nearly empty stomach, no matter how high the temptation; it leaves you feeling very very queasy.

Snatched two evenings with cousins and two of my favourite nieces – spent a night with them, giving up my usual independence in Bombay – I’ve been spoilt by the luxury of having Suku’s fully finished flat available, through which I can waltz in-n-out without worrying about other people’s schedules or offending someone with the time I’m returning!

Finally managed to go meet Mechthild – the German student who’s down this year for the exchange programme with the Univ of Mumbai. Gave her some pointers on where she should go, what would be the better option for traveling etc etc. Since I was at the University I also dropped in to meet my mentor Dr Bharucha – oh it felt so damn good to knock on the office of Head of Department, and walk in to see her and not the ogre Dr.Bhongle! The Department is FINALLY in good hands!

Patricia and Bernard (mes amis Francais) are here for their honeymoon – I got them back with me to Pune. Showed them around for 2 days – oh how much we walked – saw some areas of Pune for the first time myself – including the red-light area in Budhwar Peth, that we stumbled on inadvertently and backed out hurriedly when I saw the looks we were getting. *Shudder* Sumptuous dinner at Riverview for Xmas eve, when Kunal joined us rather late, coming in from Bombay after a full day’s work. Christmas day was equally nice with a visit to Lonavala, Bushy dam where we discovered a lovely spot by the water, perfect for a picnic and yet another sumptuous meal, at Fariyas this time. After bidding adieu to Patricia & Bernard, Kunal and I went for Raincoat, after a long leisurely walk in Nala Park. Finished off a bottle of Montbazillac later that night – excellent wine!

Now – we’ve got some cousins who’ve driven down from Bangalore – the year sure is spiraling into a busy end!

Raincoat (2004)

Raincoat – I went for the movie with more than a slight trepidation. The reason being Ms.Rai and her ability to set my nerves on the edge with her hysterical, over-the-top ‘acting’. I am glad I didn’t allow myself to fall prey to my prejudice against her. Inspired by O Henry's classic short story The Gift of Magi, the film narrates the tale of two estranged lovers who meet on a rainy afternoon in a dingy room of a house in South Calcutta. Poetic, subtle, intelligent, sensitive, heart-touchingly romantic, depressing and witty – the movie is all that and more. I have to hand it to Rituparno Ghosh for penning such a brilliant script and producing such fine acting from his cast compromising of Ajay Devgan and Annu Kapoor, apart from the ubiquitous Ms. Rai. What I loved the most about the film was the moments of dark humour and the nasty, yet poignant little exchanges between the character of Manoj and his wife’s friend.

The art design, the cinematography, the dialogues, the acting – it all compiled to make a must-watch movie. Shubha Mudgal’s soulful rendering of the theme song ensures that you’re choked up at the poignant moments of the film – the film leaves you’re eyes damp without resorting to any clichés or melodrama. Simply told, it is perhaps one of the most beautiful movies I’ve seen, on par with Mr and Mrs Iyer.

I’m going to go grab a copy of the soundtrack ASAP – you go watch the movie!

Khamosh Pani (2003)

Directed by debutante film-maker Sabiha Sumar, Khamosh Pani (Still Waters) narrates the tale of Ayesha (Kiron Kher), a woman well into her forties who has devoted her life to bringing up her son in a small village in the Punjab district of Pakistan. Set in 1979, when General Zia-ul-Haq has imposed martial law and the country was decreed a Muslim state, the film raises probing and rather uncomfortable questions about the partition, without resorting to the usual hysteria, melodrama and violence one associates and expects from a movie dealing with as volatile a subject. Though a Pakistani, she presents an unbiased view of the partition, when many Sikh and Muslim women were cold-bloodedly killed by their own families in order to avoid dishonour at the hands of the ‘enemy’. The irony in this narrative is that the women were perhaps safer left in the enemy’s hands. Sumar also deals with the themes of women’s emancipation, dreams of the youth in a country struggling to assert its identity, the need for a vocation and a goal in life and how easy it is to fall victim to fundamentalism in the absence of such a goal.

An absolutely brilliant movie – it is subtle and simple, but extremely effective. Excellent acting by the cast and a taut script drove home the point, without making the film a propaganda, unlike most movies on Partition. The movie has already won critical acclaim at international film festivals and received good reviews world-wide. Take my advice – go see it, before it vanishes from the Cinemas!

Of Silver Linings and Rainbows

Me's saying me's posted new story on Literary Mosaic ! Please read and comment...meanwhile I shall go bite my nails and wait nervously for the verdict!

Edgar Degas (1834- 1917)

I have been reading up on Impressionism for the past few weeks (Essential Impressionists, ed Hurrel Karen,© Parragon, 2000 and Artchive.com) – a style of painting favoured by a group of artists, who preferred painting outdoors in plein-air, recording the changing conditions of light and atmosphere, as well as their individual sensations before nature. The emphasis was on the over-all visual impression, stamped on the senses by a transitory visual experience – my favourite is undeniably Claude Monet, whose Giverny: Spring(1900) and The Japanese Bridge (1900) stole my breath away and made me itch to own it…I’ll never afford it in this lifetime, I know – but I’ve promised myself that my foyer shall boast a replication/poster one day.

But this post isn’t about Monet, it’s about Degas. Edgar Degas, acknowledged as the master of drawing human figures. Before I started studying Impressionism, I wasn’t really fond of nudes, per se. But Degas’ nudes are something else all together. Beauty personified. The ultimate compliment paid to the woman. Voyeuristic. Passionate. Objective. Real. Brilliant. Sensual. Sensuous.

Rejecting the idea of formal beauty as seen in the Salon nudes with their rosy nipple et al, he was often seen as a misogynist. "Why do you paint women so ugly, Monsieur Degas?" some hostess unwisely asked him. "Parce que la femme en general est laide, madame, " growled back Degas, in his characteristic Great Bear style.("Because, madam, women in general are ugly." )

This couldn’t be further from the truth; all you have to do to discover Degas’ true feelings is to take a look at his nudes, painted in the 1880s and 1890s. Some critics still find them "clinical," because they seem to be done from a point outside the model's awareness, as though she did not know he was there and were not, actually, posing. This is partly true. The series of ‘Key-Hole’ bathers, which caused a scandalous uproar in gentile Parisian society, showed the woman at her toilette, and was exhibited at the 8th Impressionist exhibition in 1886. In this series, Degas painted the woman as he viewed her from his vantage point at the key-hole, as a voyeur.

Critic J.K Huysman said “It seems as though [Degas]…has determined to retaliate and fling in the face of the century the worst insult he can devise, overturning that cherished idol, woman, degrading her by showing her actually in her bath, in the most humiliating postures of her toilette.” Despite all the criticism and flak the series earned itself, over half the paintings were sold before the exhibition opened. What could, after all, be more appealing to the eyes, the senses?

Degas himself described the woman, as the “human creature preoccupied with itself, a cat that licks itself.” Later he admitted that “Perhaps I have treated women too much as animals” (I chewed and ruminated and masticated over these statements, trying to be offended, but ended up struck by the sheer sensuality of the words. And they say the man was impotent? Well, the passion his contemporary women lost out on, the art world gained – big time!)


I found some of the nudes online:-











Monet’s work will definitely grace my home one day; but I hope to have one of these as well – though for that I’m going to have to find one helluva tolerant husband (not that difficult. I’m sure few guys would object to having a Nude to admire on a daily basis ;-)) and even more tolerant in-laws! (Now that’s going to be a task – can’t imagine too many in-laws being happy with the prospect of putting up a nude – art or not, nude it is!)

The Vegetable Vendor Is No More

My dear friend Annika who lives in Magdeburg recently wrote to me after the vegetable vendor's shop at the end of her street, Gutenberg Strasse, shut down. A vegetarian, she was deeply affected by this new development - and wrote a very moving email to me, sharing her woes with me, in characterstic Annika style! And as usual I was clapping my hands in glee at the way she put it! I had to share it with you - so here it is :-

I'm dead blue. The vegetable vendor in my block is no more.
Minute of silence.
He opened up in August and brought sunshine into my life:
fresh vegetables within a few steps of my house,
no more carrying of heavy loads across the whole city,
personal sale instead of self-take box, amounts according to my wishes
instead of prepacked portions --
I could buy a single carrot, okay,
that is possible at Real as well but only for bio veges
and they cost more.
Now he is no longer.
The sales in this small road with hardly any stores must have been to small.
The only chance was that the people visiting the bakery next door
would also frequent the veg store but I guess fewest of them did.
So he closed down.
Leaving behind a sad, vegless, paintorn Annika.
© Annika Schlee

Ain't she good? :-)

Grrrrrr

Grrr…I’m snarling like a nasty bull-dog. So irritated. And frustrated. Feel like tearing someone’s hair out. Clawing at someone’s face with my claws…oh, but I don’t have any. Damn. Why can’t I grow my nails into long painted red talons like other women do? Now I know the purpose they serve. Hehe smart bimbos, have to hand it to them! Muhahaha…that makes me feel better. I’m laughing – even if it’s a raucous hysterical laughter of a witch! Ok it isn’t – so no scratching, and no laughing like witches either. Sigh – kya kismat hai! *Giggles hysterically*

Don’t ask what brought on this mood – long story. You don’t want to read about it. Trust me.

Accomplishments of the day :- Finally picked up the CD of Morning Raga – also Def Lepard’s Best Hits and Shania Twain – Best Hits. Looking forward to listening to them for the next few days…

Short Story

"Hang your head Tom Dooley" – as I kept humming that tune inside my head, I realised it can sound quite menacing and all of a sudden an image of “poor Laura” holding a knife popped into my head. So I sat me down at the computer and let my fingers build the image further – came up with a short story which I’ve posted on Literary Mosaic for feelers – as before, comments are more than welcome. Leave them here or at LM! :-)

Had a pretty decent weekend apart from the enforced movie-experience – filled with late night Biryani dinners, great conversations and a Caferati meet. The week has been its usual lazy, vella self so far, except for yesterday evening which passed in a flurry of activities as I put in my two-bit for a dinner party – need to stop being lazy and go to AFP and MMB-Pune to get some formalities out of the way, and thinking of making a painting for Dr.B…

Pardon Me...

Veer Zara. A Yash Chopra extravaganza. A love story to rival the greatest love stories of all time. Boasting the golden melodies of Madan Mohan and the brilliant performances of the nation’s favourite Khan, with two beautiful damsels to support him. What more could you want?

I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be subjected to three hours of clichés. Mr.Chopra tugged at every string he could, not leaving anything to chance. So he tossed in the elements and come up with a mind-blowing granola. The love-story with insurmountable difficulties that tore the lovers apart. The Hindu-Muslim conflict. The India-Pakistan war. The Partition. The commonalities between us - “sanskar” in the youth, loving parents, rich traditions preserved through the years… The childless couple who brought up their relatives orphaned child, and would but obviously have had an inter-community love marriage and been the pioneering couple of the village. The fields of golden corn (or was it wheat I saw) and colourful flowers in bloom. The patriotic songs of “Yeh mera desh hai aisa…jaisa desh hai tera.” The designer dresses and exquisite embroidery. And oh, let’s not forget the “bebe” (an old maid who served the family through-out her life and brought up the heroine) who maintained a child’s joie de vivre till the day she lay on her death-bed and decided she wants her ashes to be thrown into an Indian river, for after all, she was an Indian at heart, even though she had spent her entire life in Pakistan.

Pardon me for predicting every turn in the story.
Pardon me for questioning how Zara managed to fit half a dozen heavy salwar-kurtas and matching jewellery into a small rucksack.
Pardon me for wondering if all Punjabi farmers look as robust and wear as colourful clothes to the fields.
Pardon me for groaning as they belted out clichéd songs about the richness of their soil, and their traditions.
Pardon me for analyzing Kiron Kher’s nails & thinking she probably doesn’t lift a glass at home, as she inflicted another tear-jerking dialogue on the audience.
Pardon me for admiring the architecture and wondering if the monument is really in Pakistan, or that red fort next to the Taj Mahal, as Veer Pratap Singh lets his Zara know that she must marry the guy chosen by her parents and produce 8-10 children after which she can come visit him in his village and they can take a ride around it, on a bicycle…no, a tractor.
Pardon me for preferring the maid Shabbo’s simple clothes and the Punjabi farmers’ floral lungis over Zara’s richly embroidered ensembles.
Pardon me for remembering my friend Saima, who also has crochet done on all her dupattas to show that she is not a widow and regretting the fall-out in our friendship, instead of empathizing with Zara’s pain.
Pardon me for wondering why I agreed to go for this movie, after successfully resisting K3G, KHNH, MHN et al…
Pardon me for paying more attention to the ushers at E-Square, who reprimanded those using their cell phones in the hall, and escorting them out (probably to fine them), than to the dialogues.
Pardon me for asking you to go grab a DVD/VCD of Morning Raga (it disappeared from cinemas within a week) and avoid this sob-story like the plague.
Pardon me for resisting the great Indian tradition of extravagant Bollywood love stories.
Pardon me for praying I never, ever, again have to do this as a family duty.

Hang Your Head Tom Dooley..

Hang your head Tom Dooley, Hang your head and cry,
Killed poor Laura Foster, And you know you’re bound to die…

Running through my head like an endless refrain – it’s stuck there and won’t go away. But then I’m not doing anything to make it go away – music inside my head lightens my mood, brushes away those dark clouds of dourness, wipes that scowl away, brings back the light in eyes that were reflecting a boiling cauldron of emotions a few hours ago. So I continue to hum at the back of mind, this classic by The Kingston Trio…

Peeled my eyes open this morning – something that’s been happening a lot lately, since I’ve been sleeping late, after having spent hours curled up in my razai devouring some book or the other and then spending at least half-an-hour, if not more, tossing around in bed trying to fall asleep. But the thoughts don’t let me – sometimes I’m just mulling over what I’ve just read; sometimes I’m composing something in my mind; sometimes I’m wondering where I will be next year – is it where I want to be or will I end up somewhere else,; sometimes I’m trying to shut the Pandora’s Box of emotions that I wish were filtered and subdued, wishing I could let them stream out unbridled, but knowing that would mess things up real bad and I don’t want that to happen…

So I sleep late and there is no reason to wake up early – I definitely don’t want the day to stretch endlessly in front of me, late nights don’t call for early mornings – so I wake up leisurely when Apollo has already made it’s way half-way up, when the birds have stopped twittering in delight over a new day, when the early morning activities in the kitchen have died away…I groggily force one eye-lid apart, peer like a blind owl at my bed-side clock that informs me it’s 8.30 a.m and I wait for Schnapps to come bounding into my room to inform me that I’m the only one still in bed. A jab with his wet, rather cold nose and I lazily poke one leg out of the razai…it’s a brand new day, let’s get out of bed and get those crooked teeth brushed and shiny. Yawn! Putting Schnapps on my cupboard so he can bark at the team of sweepers busy sprucing up the avenue that leads up to the bungalows beyond the buildings, I reach for my glasses, smile as the world clears up, and make my way to the breakfast table – some toast with eggs/jam/tomatoes (I’m not particular), some fruit and coffee, a jostle over the newspaper with my father who’s intent on reading every tiny bit of news in there before he leaves for his office in the ‘dongar’ and I’m set for the day.

But this morning it all went out of kilter – an enquiry from my mother regarding which tickets to ask my brother to book for a movie I’m not particularly (make that, not at all) keen on seeing led to a rather nasty show-down between my brother and me. Barely awake, I was breathing down fumes and shooting daggers at him with my eyes – argh I hate it when men put on this “I’m so busy, you oughtta be glad I’m running this errand for you” act. Makes me want to throw something at them – something crystal, something that would make a nice loud crash as it hits that thick skull! Itched to tell him he can take those tickets and go to hell for all I care, it’s not me who wants to watch the latest addition to sob-love-stories! Ick – I hate it even more when I have to swallow my anger to ensure the smiles stay intact on other’s faces!!!

Hang your head Tom Dooley, Hang your head and cry,
Killed poor Laura Foster, And you know you’re bound to die…

Currently:-

• Reading William Dalrymple’s mammoth work, White Moghuls, after having finished The Handmaid’s Tale. (Find my review of this classic by Margaret Atwood at Literary Mosaic)
• Itching to head to Bombay and vent this hoarded up energy by walking down Marine Drive, breathing in that salty air & letting the wind play with my hair for a change, sharing my woes with one of my bosom buddies, and then over to Causeway - Mondegar for supper or mayhaps to Oxford (I haven’t been there in aeons) for a tall glass of iced tea and a nice Turkish salad. Hmm…

Truffles

Truffles – when I first learnt about them from my friend Patricia, last year in Bordeaux, I thought to myself, “Ridiculous! Such a high price for a tiny little underground mushroom! The things people pass off as ‘delicacies’!” For Christmas dinner, at Patricia’s mother-in-law’s beautiful Bordelaise home, we had 'Boudain Blanc' (plump white sausages served with stewed apples) and I was informed that the little black specks I saw in the sausages were truffles…still not convinced of their value, I grunted in response, nodded briefly and continued to enjoy the Sausages. Delicacy or not, they were delicious!

Less than a year later, I read Encore Provence in which the author Peter Mayle indulges in an entire chapter on truffles! And I decided it’s time I polished up my knowledge on these trifling mushrooms that cost a tiny fortune!

It is common to say that the truffle is an underground mushroom, but more exactly it is the fruit of the Mycelium. In the classification of mushrooms, the truffle is in the category of the Ascomycetes Hypoges. (Ascomycetes because the spores are enclosed in small pockets (asques) and Hypogee because it is underground.)

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Known as the King of Fungi, this highly fragrant tuber has been the cause of gunfights, thefts, wild accusations of fraud, and inquiries that take the police across countries to catch the culprits! In France, truffle commerce is very secretive – truffle cultivators and “hunters” avoid the taxman just as much as drug dealers do elsewhere in the world. And why? Because of it’s cost & rarity - These days a kilo costs US $750 in French markets. By the time we get them in North America the price may be as high as $1,250 to $1,500, depending on store location, and fame of the establishment. Dean and Deluca in New York will not part with a kilogram of truffles for less than $1,400, and Fauchon in Paris is likely to charge $1,000. To make it more exciting – truffles lose weight as they dry, so you actually lose money as the clock ticks – the race to carry the truffles across from the market-places to Paris into the kitchen of an exclusive restaurant is critical and I definitely don’t envy the man who has the job of transporting this delicacy from source to destination! A tiny consolation is that they can be stored for months, as long as they are kept in a damp atmosphere, and even frozen, though that affects the quality & texture of the mushroom.

Since truffles cannot be seen, specially trained sows and dogs are employed to find the elusive tubers, Sows love to eat them and have a keen sense of smell, but because of their size, transportation tends to be cumbersome, also once they start digging, it is difficult to stop them to retrieve the truffle. Many “hunters” prefer specially trained dogs that are easier to control. And then there are the precautions one must take to ensure that one’s precious truffles aren’t stolen from the “fields” overnight by the “smugglers” of the truffle trade!
There are three types of truffles – black, grey, and white. Black truffles generally come from France, white from Piedmont and Umbria, Italy and grey can be found in North America. Because black truffles are in such high demand, many fraudulent dealers buy inferior truffles like fungi, colour them and sell at exorbitant prices. Chinese truffles look like black French truffles, and some dealers are known to colour and sell them for authentic. Generally they buy the Chinese truffle for $30 a kilogram and after colouring sell it whatever the going market is. Considered an aphrodisiac, truffles are used in various preparations - goose liver pates, in sauces, omelettes, scrambled eggs, compound butters, baked in puff pastry... Mayle, suggests that the true relishment of truffles is found in the simplest recipes. So the best way to enjoy it, is to have it with plain scrambled eggs!

Hmm…perhaps next time I’m in France? (IF I can afford it!)