Divina Cucina

Your Best Friend in Italy

Extra Virgins!

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Fall is arriving. I adore the views over the vineyards and hills and the changing of the colors. Foggy mornings and cool evenings.


We are doing the new oil dance here! Nothing like getting your first bottle of new olive oil. Tuscans pick their olives a little green, which means they are mostly hand picked and not shaken from the tree. The oil is very “spicy”  and peppery. Which pairs with our cooking style.

Since I brought back my 5 liters from Sicily and just got another liter from my neighbors, it’s time to celebrate.

Whenever new foods come into season,
there is always a festival to celebrate
called a sagra.

But why wait?


The best way to enjoy the “peppery-bite” of new oil
is simply on toasted bread called Fettunta in Tuscany.

Fettunta
fette-slice…. unta-greasy.

Toast nice thick slices of country style bread

Rub with a garlic clove, cut in half.

Pour on the oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Have plenty of napkins ready!

New oil is perfect on:

hot Tuscan beans, try the beans on the fettunta with some of the cooking liquid as well
grilled steak
twice-cooked veggies
orange salad with fennel and black olives

ice cream!

What do you do with your new oil?

 

 

Comments

  1. Monica says

    Hello! We just returned to Chicago after spending a week in Panzano. We brought back 8 bottles of new oil! It’s so good! My husband just called me to tell me that we’ve used up half a bottle and he’s worried that we’ll run out before too long.

  2. "Diva" says

    once you have had new oil, it is hard to go back.
    Most of my clients get about 20 liters per year shipped.

    saving it for the drizzling oil!

    Judy

  3. Anne in Oxfordshire says

    What wonderful tales of Sicily..reminds me of our holiday in 2006.

    We are going to Liguria next week for 10 days..but I am going to miss the Olive festival :-(..but if the weather is bad , it will be on when I am there..don’t want bad weather for the locals, but I would like to see it ..

  4. Rita Kent at TesoroFino.Com says

    Oh how I wish I could be part of making the oil and collecting the olives during this season like my friends in Frosinone. I sooo want to move there; I have always felt it’s where I belong. Just go back from a month in Italy and I am homesick to come back.