I mentioned a few weeks ago we were about to visit Abruzzo.
Well, the Italy part of our travels got scotched, unfortunately,
but we did make it to the U.K.

Once again, there are excellent Italian white truffles available
at Borough Market -- but the price has doubled since two seasons
ago, to L300 / 100g. We bought a 12 gram truffle and had
half of it on fresh pasta for dinner last night, and the other
half on eggs for breakfast today. It was in excellent condition
and well worth the outlay. (The other time we did something
similar, two years ago, it was in January and therefore at
end of season rather than peak truffle season.)

(I've seen news reports that the price of Italian truffles
is lower this season, due to the credit crunch, but I
have not found any evidence of this.)

There have been a few other culinary highligts, including
some excellent Indian food in Derby at a place called
Masala Art, a buffalo blue cheese from nearby there, and
a vegan restaurant in Sowerby Bridge, Dandelion and Burdock,
with excellent food but excruciatingly slow service.

The beer is still the best in the world, in my opinion, if
you avoid the majors and the newer types of microbrew-style ales
of which there are now hundreds of breweries. Good
beers that we've had this time around include Goose Eye,
Black Sheep, Harvey's and St Austels. Historically good
ales like Greene King and Adnams have expanded production
to the point where they're not as likely to be the same
as one would hope.

Steve