In the Dirt at Holland

The week after Christmas, when life gets slow and sleepy and I tend to shuffle around in socks more than shoes, Margaret called and asked if I wanted to go truffle hunting. I’d watched enough documentaries to know a truffle hunt wasn’t something you turned down. Besides, my plans for the day included wrestling the Christmas tree back into its box and picking flocking out of the carpet. I said yes and hurried to the car to head to Holland.

Holland is more than a spot on a map for me—it’s a chapter in my life. Mama grew up there, and we spent a good part of my childhood wading through Long Creek, camping down in the bottoms, and playing hide-and-seek in the Baptist Church cemetery after Vacation Bible School. My older cousins would tease the younger kids and scare us. But then Sunday dinners at Mama Wavie’s house would always roll around and you'd find us same cousins piled high on the couch. These days, my trips to Holland are quieter, reserved for spring afternoons with Mama and Granny, walking through the cemetery, fixing up flowers and Windex-ing off graves.

I first heard about Margaret’s truffle farm on a hot July evening at a First Friday event in Scottsville. I was standing there with a soft-serve ice cream cone from the cafe, when she asked, "Where'd you get that?" After she got her own, we struck up a conversation. She didn’t have that lifelong Scottsville look about her and so I was curious! Margaret grew up here but had spent her career and family raising years in Seattle. I nearly dropped my ice cream when she told me she had returned home and was growing truffles on her family farm in Allen County. Allen County and truffles?! Let alone, Kentucky! As far as I knew (from my extensive documentary education) truffles were something that came from dense forests in France, sniffed out by pigs. But here they were, trying to grow in a place where the biggest culinary adventure was hunting dryland fish.

Newtown Truffière, she told me, was her retirement project. While others bought campers or golf carts or condos in Florida, Margaret, a former exec for Microsoft and J.B. Hunt, chose a truffle orchard. “I wanted a challenge,” she said, like that was reason enough to coax a European delicacy out of Kentucky soil. And she sure got one. Truffle farming, I’ve learned, is truly a challenge. You need the right soil conditions, endless patience, a well-documented hunt history, and a dog smart enough to sniff out treasure underground. It wasn’t just farming; it was pioneering, putting Holland, Kentucky, on a map most people didn’t know existed.

On the day of the hunt, I turned down that familiar Holland Road. The homes and farmland of family and friends passed by me. New houses popped up in the middle of once empty fields and surprisingly some of my favorite old houses were still standing. The sun worked hard that day and it was warm and sunny! When I walked into the farm house, Luca, the truffle dog, greeted me with an energy that said, Let’s go already. He’s a Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian breed with curly hair and a sniffer fine-tuned for fungus. Margaret’s husband, Steve, handed me a cup of coffee, but I barely finished it before we piled into the truck, Luca chatty with anticipation.

The lower orchard was a field of hazelnut trees planted with purpose. As we drove past the cluster of cat houses—yes, houses for cats—Margaret explained their mission: rodent control. Mice, voles, and other burrowing menaces can ruin truffle growth, so feral cats were the farm’s natural security force.

Once we parked, Margaret clipped Luca’s leash into place. “Hunt mode,” she said with a shift of the harness. I learned right then that Luca had two modes: pet mode and work mode, toggled by a leash adjustment and a secret command word. “You have to use a word you’d never say at home,” she said with a grin. And then she gave the command.

The dog stiffened, nose to the ground, tail high. And just like that, we were off, chasing truffles through Kentucky clay on a warm winter day.

‍