N
ovember to late spring is truffle season in the wet
woods of western Oregon. But the Czarnecki family thinks truffles all year long. “The truffles we find during the long rainy days of winter carry our family through the entire year,” said Stefan Czarnecki, fourth-generation truffle forager. Stefan is the son of Jack Czarnecki, a wild mushroom pioneer and founder of the award-winning Joel Palmer House restaurant in Dayton. “Truffles are treasures for our family and the others fortunate enough to live here.” Foraging, harvesting, and preparing the local delicacy require skills and trade secrets fiercely guarded by a long lineage of proud outdoorsmen chefs. Part of the truffle mystique is that you can only find them by digging on private ground, with the