Alba Italy

GIUSEPPE AZZOLINA, a 44-year-old stonemason, leaned across the icy scaffolding atop the second-highest medieval tower on Piazza Risorgimento in the center of Alba and said, "First we restore the tower, then we redo the apartment building below where no one has lived since World War II. "It's like making good wine: It takes time." Time has long been measured unhurriedly in Alba and the wine country that surrounds it in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

GIUSEPPE AZZOLINA, a 44-year-old stonemason, leaned across the icy scaffolding atop the second-highest medieval tower on Piazza Risorgimento in the center of Alba and said, "First we restore the tower, then we redo the apartment building below where no one has lived since World War II. "It's like making good wine: It takes time." Time has long been measured unhurriedly in Alba and the wine country that surrounds it in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

A stunning Barbera from one of Barolo's greatest producers. Barolo may be king in Piedmont, but Luciano Sandrone shows year after year that when Barbera d'Alba is treated as seriously as Nebbiolo, the once-humble, everyday grape can produce a very serious wine. Sandrone's strength has always been the exquisite balance he achieves in his wines, and the 2003 Barbera is no exception: It's a wonderful blend of power and finesse, voluptuous fruit and firm structure.

A stunning Barbera from one of Barolo's greatest producers. Barolo may be king in Piedmont, but Luciano Sandrone shows year after year that when Barbera d'Alba is treated as seriously as Nebbiolo, the once-humble, everyday grape can produce a very serious wine. Sandrone's strength has always been the exquisite balance he achieves in his wines, and the 2003 Barbera is no exception: It's a wonderful blend of power and finesse, voluptuous fruit and firm structure.

This year, skip the master gardening class about how to keep whiteflies out of your orange trees. Forget the annual pilgrimage to the nursery for zucchini starts. Plant your own truffle trees and grow something your friends will actually want. That's what I've done, with the help of a truffle grower, Mother Nature and all the patience I can muster. The most prized truffle varieties are the white truffle of Alba, Italy (Tuber magnatum pico), and the Perigord black truffle (Tuber melanosporum).

Our most memorable meal in the Piedmont region of Italy, known for food and wine, was at Trattoria Cascina Schiavenza overlooking the vineyards in Serralunga d'Alba. Delicious and reasonable. Trattoria Cascina Schiavenza, Serralunga d'Alba, Italy; 011-39-0173-61-3115, http://www.schiavenza.com/ing/osteria.asp . Dinners from $25.. Susan and John Fisher Pacific Palisades

It was surreal, even here, where the unlikely confluence of neon and sand has created a booming, crap-shooting, celebrity-hunting desert fantasyland. We were in the Las Vegas version of Valentino restaurant on a sunny Sunday morning, fresh from a gondola ride outside the Venetian hotel, and now we were linked by closed-circuit satellite television to New York and Alba, Italy, for the fifth annual white truffle charity auction.

Domenica Bertolusso lives on a nondescript road in a tiny village near Alba, Italy. But even if the directions to her house are sketchy or if you arrive at night, you will probably find the place by smell. The moment you reach her domicile, your nostrils will fill with a distinctive aroma--pungent, earthy, almost cheesy--the scent of fresh white truffles. Domenica and her husband, Beppe Montanaro, own TartufLanghe, Italy's largest truffle distributor.

Outside St. Vibiana's Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, faded graffiti mars the facade of the old church and darkens the spirit. A homeless man lies on the sidewalk sound asleep. His head is buried against the crumbling church walls, and he is oblivious to the holy place where he is resting. From inside the abandoned building comes the staccato rhythm of sewing machines mixing musically with the whispers of six women at prayer. For more than a century, St.

When Gianmaria Buccellati arrived in Los Angeles last week to unveil priceless museum pieces created by the Italian House of Buccellati, the gems he carried were not only rubies, diamonds and sapphires. Wrapped in newspaper and packed wood crates were priceless gems of a culinary kind.

I was in the culver city warehouse of urbani, the world's largest importer of truffles, standing next to 10 pounds of fresh white winter truffles. My entire body was tingling from the power of their musky, earthy perfume. The estimated market value of the contents of the three small boxes at my side was $15,000--wholesale. They looked like worthless, sandy rocks, mineral colored in beige and ochre with hints of celadon green, lumpy and pitted like potatoes grown in the worst soil.

Do a Google search for "Nutella," the Italian hazelnut-chocolate spread that comes in a squat jar like peanut butter and is often found right next to it in grocery aisles, and you'll get about 5 million results. Which is about twice what you get when you Google "chocolate chip cookies" -- and several times as many as the phrase "Valentine's Day chocolates." You might want to remember that this weekend. Because Nutella isn't just junk food with a European pedigree.