TOUJOURS PROVENCE by Peter Mayle, illustrated...

TOUJOURS PROVENCE by Peter Mayle, illustrated by Judith Clancy (Vintage: $10). In this sequel to the best-selling “A Year in Provence,” expatriate Englishman Peter Mayle writes about the good life and food of southern France with an insider’s knowledge and outsider’s sense of wonder. A tasting session in the village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, whose wine bears its name, finds Mayle comically out of his depth; a gourmet friend takes him to lunch at a small restaurant that attracts large numbers of truck drivers by serving not BLTs but an extraordinary array of excellent food--for only 70 francs (about $14), including wine, coffee and Calvados. The purchase of a few truffles from an acquaintance leads Mayle into a debate over the relative talents of dogs and pigs as hunters of the fabulously expensive fungus, and involves him in a case of truffle-rustling.