Truffled Eggs and Other Little Luxuries

Have you ever eaten a truffled egg?

A truffled egg is rich, creamy, salty and aromatic. It's impossible to accurately describe the smell and taste of truffles, but they're sort of earthy and other worldly at the same time, like decomposing leaves if decomposing leaves had a more pleasant aroma--fetid, encompassing. Truffles smell woodsy, too, but not in a typical cedar, pine, evergreen way. More like dark, dangerous woods woodsy; truffles are culinary sorcery.

Sometimes, when T-money is out for the evening, I cook truffled eggs and sauteed veggies for supper. Tonight I sauteed diced potato, red bell pepper, and petit pois with garlic, olive oil, and herbs de provance, and ate them alongside a truffled French omelet, satiny smooth on the outside and custardy inside. I sat on the couch and relished each rich bite.

The best part about this treat is that it's an affordable luxury. I've been using the real stuff because my friend Erin gave it to us as a wedding present, but Trader Joe's makes a decent faux truffle oil that has almost the same fug and flavor as real truffles. It's also healthy! Eggs are a great source of protein and iron, and everyone should eat more veggies. Adding truffle oil gives a boring supper bang and glamor. It feels good at the end of a long work day to treat your nose, tongue and stomach to something special. Perhaps especially now, when so much of the news is dour.

This blog post is a call for indulging in little luxuries (I can think of at least two close friends shrieking at my hypocrisy right now, but I am being serious). If you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time working and more than a little worrying about spending money. And it's important to work hard and to save money. But, it is also important to enjoy life. And that is why you should indulge in red lipstick and body scrubs, long walks, really good coffee with cream, warm pajamas, lazy time with your sweetie, netflix, and truffled eggs. I've been adding baking my own bread, fantasy novels, blogging, and crocheting to the list, but little luxuries are flexible--just do the things that make you very happy.

Tonight, having savored my omelet, I am going to give myself a pedicure and watch a movie starring Viggo Mortenson. Tomorrow I have a rehearsal, grocery shopping and laundry to do, thank-you notes to write, and dramaturgical research to do, and Monday I must write my spring syllabus, but tonight is greedy, selfish pleasure time.