I’ve been studying the guidebooks for what to expect in Torino, besides the Alps towering over everything. It’s not really pasta country, but leans more toward rice and grains, and French-style sauces, and Swiss-style meat dishes. And cheese. No, I said that wrong.  And CHEE-eeese. Handmade, from all reports, and puh-lenty of it. Oh yeah, and it’s apparently the ancestral home of the white truffle (the best kind, or so they say). Never having tried truffles, at least the real kind, I’m anticipating our meeting with a fair mix of awe and dread. What if they’re a thousand dollars a pound and I don’t like ’em. Worse, what if I find them irresistible, and can’t afford to bring any home???

Am I obsessing? About food? You betcha. But maybe you can help. Surely there are those of you reading this who have been to Italy, or the Mediterranean, and who would know what the things made there that one should seek out and come home with a bag full of. Maybe it’s truffles. Or olive oil soap, or funny-looking garden tools. Whatever. Write and tell me what I should be looking for down all those alpine piedmont country lanes. I’ll do my best.