Until four years ago, I had a love/hate relationship with white truffles. My father, a New York restaurateur, exposed me to them at a young age, making me travel each fall to our house upstate with a canister containing a stinking white truffle on my lap. While the fowl, rancid stench nearly killed me every time, it was the taste of the white truffle shavings over my dad’s creamy white risotto that always won me over in the long run.

This weekend, my sister hosted an intimate 40th birthday dinner for my brother-in-law at a restaurant called Zafferano in London. To our delight, she surprised us all with a white truffle feast.