Bedtime stories are not just for children. In fact, if 40 Winks’ tales are anything to go by, it could be argued that they get better with age. Pyjamas are still compulsory, but hot milk is replaced with a fruity Hendrick’s cocktail, and the stories are naughtier, darker and funnier. Tucked away in the increasingly […]

Gone are the days when the best of English cuisine was pie and mash or a pickled onion. With the likes of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, the bar in the kitchen has been well and truly raised. Cooking fever has taken London by storm; my favourite is baking your own bread. In search of […]

It’s official: I’m a Sicilian junkie. The Aeolian Islands have cast their seductive spell on me. I am now suffering from acute Summer Withdrawal Syndome, and have been salivating over Salina ever since the day I left. I keep going back to the bewitching Aeolians. The stark volcanic landscape is stunning, the sea sparkling, the […]

I am staring at a spoonful of carrot foam. Alaska has a way of surprising travellers, stripping them of their comfortable expectations, and I make it my policy when I visit the last frontier to come prepared for anything. But this—carrot foam—I am not prepared for. The foam is the first shot fired at the […]

It hit 38 C (100 F) in Toronto this July. And that’s before the humidex (it’s a Canadian thing—if you’re American, you have the heat index) pushed it up to something otherworldly like 49 C. I know it’s taboo to think of winter in the midst of our too-short ever-sweet summers, but my mind couldn’t […]

No matter how nice, polite, and evolved we think we are, it’s in our nature to want the best experiences for ourselves. When we get them, sometimes we even stoop to our baser instincts and brag. Today, we have some fine bragging rights to offer you. At Trufflepig we are the kings and queens of […]

The humble culinary underclass of the café lunch and the jug of wine is what makes the true francophile’s heart beat the fastest. Say non to the Michelin star and the TV chef, and oui to the institution of the menu à onze. The menu à onze is just that: an €11 lunch. Last I checked, eleven […]

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we dine: Slow Travel is alive and kicking in Piemonte. Not everyone knows that the Slow Food movement was born in the small Piemontese town of Bra, back in 1986. It was founded by Italian food journalist Carlo Petrini in protest against the opening of the first McDonald’s in Italy […]

“It’s imported.” The phrase has a certain cachet, doesn’t it? Imported caviar from Russia, imported Italian sports cars. Especially in New York City, it seems there’s nothing you can’t have if you’ve got the cash and you know the best source. And boy do we have an addictive source for you. We can’t really justify […]

Together with Kate Hill of the Kitchen at Camont in France’s Gascony region, Trufflepig is offering the grand prize for the craziest food phenomenon ever to hit the web: the aptly-named Charcutepalooza. Read on for details of how to win a food trip that’s really worth its salt. It hardly needs pointing out that at […]

December has hit (along with the snow), and suddenly everyone is in a planning panic for Christmas vacation. We know, we warn you to come to us far in advance for the good stuff. But in the eleventh hour, we can still toss a few truffles in your stocking. Huvafen Fushi, Maldives Huvafen Fushi is […]

Paris goes quiet in August; the rest of France is a blur of activity. Nowhere does summer holidays like France, and nothing says summer holidays like a good old-fashioned fête de village. Living in the French countryside can get a bit quiet in the winter months, but that is more than made up for by […]

There’s a reason Grandma’s been hoarding the sherry. Turns out she’s been keeping the best drink in the cabinet all to herself. It’s time to loosen her bony grip on the Amontillado. Here’s everything you ever needed to know about sherry but were too young to ask. There are five horsemen of the sherry apolcalypse: fino, […]

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom for travel in Europe are: food, wine, architecture, art, music, landscape and experimental alcoholic concoctions. Overflowing in all of the above, it’s no wonder that Jerez is my latest crush. After a dalliance with Córdoba and a brief fling with Úbeda, I didn’t expect to be swept off my feet so completely by […]

‘Marché’ means ‘market’. ‘Gras’ means ‘fat’. Welcome to the awesome ‘Marché au Gras’—the Ugolino’s Tower of every vegetarian’s worst nightmare, but the Bower of Bliss on my quest to understand authentic French country cooking. The Marché au Gras is where those of us who aren’t the wives of traditional peasant farmers buy our fattened geese […]

Close your eyes (enough to allow for some mental visualization, but not so much that you can’t read this). Now, imagine that you’re standing on an 18th century rampart overlooking the sea. The air is humid and heavy, the sun warm like a pancake on your forehead. Seagulls are swooping around, making noise, in their […]