Fresh Off The Press

More food writing they say, smear the page with butter! It would be cultured butter by the way, specifically this one salted version from Wisconsin that shows those French bums what we’re made of just like we did in World War deuce!

That was a joke. I love the French. Give me Louis Ferdinand Celine and plate and cassoulet and I'm good for the duration. But this Nordic Creamery cultured shmear is a killer. All butter is not created equal, and a good place to blow a couple of extra bucks is on some high-quality churn. I mean come on, a great piece of bread with some really good butter is one of the profound joys of existence-- a ground zero of taste and texture, fat and chew.

But I come to bury butter not to praise it. Or at least shove it aside so I can share with you one of the most important loves of my life: OLIVE OIL.

I’m crazy about the stuff! Wine and beer do little for me but my extra virgin olive oil fetish borders on deviance. Grassy, buttery, smooth with a peppery kick, there is room in my mouth for all. I am especially enamored of novellos, oil made from green olives at the beginning of the autumn harvest. Bright and verdant it explodes in your mouth tasting of trees, truth and terroir. But that’s a specialty item. For today let’s stick with the basics.

You want to become a better cook instantly? Let all your proteins rest at least 15 minutes after cooking, and start using really good extra virgin olive oil and lots of it.

But "Tommy" you say, "that shit's expensive! I can't be spending forty dollars on 500mls of olive oil on the regular.” Don't worry oh brothers and sisters, the olive oil prophet has your back. I am going to hip you to my olive oil website, and take this substack into the real world! Words are swell and I am happy to share them, but the green-gold viscous truth of a great olive oil is both life and literature.

Listen to Uncle T. Go to Olive Oil Lovers dot com (link to be shared), plop down between 80 and 120 bucks on a five liter can (or box) and have your life changed. This is where one should spend a few extra shekels if they can swing it. On the things we are in contact with every day, things that increase the quality and beauty of our daily life. But what's sneaky great about buying EVOO five liters at a time is that it ends up being the same price as the mediocre stuff in the supermarket.

Cook with it. Dip bread in it. Put it on salads, vegetables, fish. Lube your life with Tuscan gold! It's healthy, delicious and carries within it an ancient code. A connection to the earth and to the ancestors, even if they’re not yours.

One of my favorite quotes is from the Tantrics (alright, get your minds out of the gutter, they have more to offer than really long, boring sex) who say (and I paraphrase) "To have one foot in the eternal and one foot in the right now, and dance back and forth across the threshold, that is the dance of the master." Well, great olive oil does that dance. When you commune with it you connect to your ancient Sicilian farmer, your inner Greek shepherd reading Plato to his sheep.

The Spanish are actually the olive oil kings, producing by far the most in the world, and the Tunisians and Turks get in there as well, as do the folks from my own state of California, pressing some very high-quality material. But after a few years of heavy experimentation I have come to the conclusion that the land that brought us Da Vinci and Giulieltta Masina is the way to go. I tear through five liters in a month or two and have a very "high elbow" as the Italians like to say.

I would share the name of my go-to brand but I can't divulge that sensitive information at this particular moment lest there be a run on the bank, (as if anyone is actually going to listen to the ravings of a mad olio fanatic), but everything on there is good. It's such a simple way to make life tastier, and if we are not making our lives tasty then what are we doing here?

When people eat at my place, they comment on it. Often after I have said "How 'bout that fucking olive oil?" but not always. Great 0live oil is undeniable. The difference between the tenor player in a decent wedding band and Lester Young. And it's fun. It comes to your door in a box like a treasure.

The Italians know their shit. You may not want them running the post office but when it comes to collecting the fruit of a five-hundred year-old tree and pressing the green-gold soul out of it they have no peers. It’s not just olive oil, it’s an art form. And I think we can all agree that nothing tastes better than art.

OliveOilLovers.com