OIL WITH FOOD

Sitting in a restaurant on the Ligurian coast of Northern Italy, you drizzle the local oil on freshly grilled fish and lightly sautéed wild greens, and you realize that you are enjoying one of the world's finest olive oils.

The pure, simple flavor of those dishes are deepened and enhanced by the soft, very-lightly-fruity oil. You have learned the first great lesson of olive oil:

But how much more insubstantial that masterpiece tastes today! And when you try the foothill product, you find that it completes and enhances the heartier fare perfectly. You have now learned the second great lesson of olive oil:

Our own kitchen generally features three or more oils, each for a different application. There is usually a soft, elegant, sometimes buttery oil from Liguria, or Northern Spain, or somewhere in Provence. We tend to reach for this bottle to perfect a delicate fish or meat dish just out of the skillet. When we are lucky enough to find a truly fresh, deeply fruity Greek oil, we use it to bring liveliness and spunk to vegetable dishes. And we always have a third, more assertive oil, with good bitterness and pungency, to add dimension to soups, stews and other hearty dishes. Good examples of this kind of oil come from Tuscany and South-Central Spain.

More and more, of course, we enjoy our own oils at table. The "native" California varieties (Mission and Manzanillo) have a flavor profile very close to that of the more assertive Mediterranean oils. I find our Sierra matches the very best Tuscan oils for intensity, pungency and pure flavor. And the Apollo Mistral (made primarily of French varieties) combines Greek fruitiness with the butteriness and balanced structure of Provencal oils.

Our next great quest is to produce an oil of great softness and finesse. We began five years ago to import varieties which traditionally yield such an oil (see below). As these come into production we will add yet another style to our line, yet another local oil to adorn our table.