Daily Archives: January 11, 2014

This is from my annual shipment of olio nuovo (new oil) from the Rare Wine Co. in Sonoma.
The color is an iridescent jade-chartreuse, gorgeous to behold. This is olive oil more as food than condiment. I float a thread on winter minestrone or pasta fagioli, eat halved avocados with a drizzle of the oil, dip artichoke leaves in a little dish of olio nuovo.

Forget about all the butter we Americans are supposed to be consuming, I’m deep into olive oil practically every meal, lavishing a slab of grilled country bread with the intensely fruity Tuscan oil and sopping up every bit of the remains on my plate.

I get my fix every year from the Rare Wine Co., which has been bringing in a selection of new oils from Tuscany for almost 20 years now. This year, after tasting the new oils in November, Rare Wine founder Mannie Berk chose oils from half a dozen wine estates in Tuscany. He buys only single estate oils and flies the new oils to California under temperature controlled-conditions as soon as they are pressed and bottled.

When it comes to cooking, there is no denying that the celebrity chef Cat Cora is deeply passionate. And if you ask her about her about her favorite ingredient, without hesitation she’ll reply, “olive oil.” But why?

“Olive oil has a premium flavor unlike any other oil and more complexity,” she says. “Nutty, herbaceous, and earthy are all qualities of good olive oil. And if you add it to, say, a hot baked potato, a good olive oil will give off an amazing aroma, whereas a low-grade oil will give off a bland smell.”

That is why Cora recently partnered with Gaea, an olive oil purveyor in Greece, to bring an array of delicious olive oils to interested home cooks. To help you incorporate this delicious ingredient into your daily routine, Cora chatted with us about some great uses as well as why she loves the ingredient so much!