Liquid Gold- video

 

Liquid gold? Perhaps because of the price, but the color should always be a deep green, never gold.

I have a dream.

I want to share my cooking classes online with video. I don’t want to do “live  classes” so thought that the best way was to do a fun light recipe video and share online. I recently took an online class to make my own videos and here is my first practice video on the process of making extra virgin olive oil. Take a look and please share with your friends. Sign up to follow my YouTube channel.

I just returned from Sicily, where I simply shot a few very short clips of the process at two different frantoio, the olive oil mills. Both had new modern state of the art presses. It is not easy to find the old stone presses anymore or they may press with stone and then process the paste in a more modern machine. Air is an enemy to oil as is light so the new machines protect the oil from the first crush.

 

This year Tuscany and Umbria both are suffering from a lack of olives to make the oil. Here in Tuscany, in Spring, we had horrible rain and wind which blew off many of the olive blossoms and driving around you could see that there were trees totally bare of olives. Then the trees with olives were attached by a fly, which ruins for olives for oil making.

Everyone is in a panic. Olive oil is like blood running through the bodies of the Italians. Obviously, the prices on olive oil will go up. Normally, it is hard to know where your oil is coming from, as there is no real truth in labeling. I have always gotten mine from local producers.

Here we do have it labeled in the grocery store if it is Tuscan oil or Italian oil. Most of the olive oil comes from Puglia and is often blended to stretch the Tuscan oil., as well as using oils from Greece, Tunisia and Spain.

 

 

I find that the the oil tends to match the cuisine of the region. In Tuscany, we love an olive oil with a peppery green “bite”, it balances well with our simply grilled meats and acts as black pepper on salads. You will almost never see black pepper on a table in Tuscany, we have the olive oil and we use chili pepper in cooking instead of black pepper.

Near the sea, Liguria, Sicily and Puglia have milder oils which are perfect for a fish and vegetable based diet.

Like wine, it reflects the terroir of a place. I have several oils from several regions as I don’t cook just Tuscany style.

It is possible now to also get half liter bottles of extra virgin oil from several fabulous importers in the USA. I know Beatrice from Gustiamo and also heard of the Oil2go people from a friend.

In Italy, we spend more on food than on clothing or accessories. Buying first quality extra virgin olive oil is not cheap, especially when imported to the USA. I consider it to be like a Chanel No 5, not to be poured on heavily, but used with a delicate hand and for special occasions.

We tend to spend a lot of money going out to eat but not on ingredients for our own cooking at home to make our own food spectacular.

My mother-in-law always said, “Spend more time shopping and less time cooking”. Essentially, the better the ingredients, the less you have to do to make them taste great.

Build your pantry:
GREAT extra virgin olive oil as a finishing oil. Drizzled on at the end for the best flavor.
Sea Salt. I get mine from Trapani in Sicily. It has more minerals and less sodium , you use less.

Please leave feedback on the video on youtube!!! thanks for following me.