EVOO -- Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I love to cook Mediterranean cuisines, especially the Middle East end of the geography. I relish a good fresh feta and delight in olives from the regions. I've even learned the difference between herb use by Turkish and Greek cooks, the former love their basil and the later their oregano. I now grow both to have fresh always on hand. But the key to all those great dishes is olive oil.

Some cooks have one kind of olive oil for dipping, another for salads and yet another for cooking. And some call it EVOO, which for me is a hardship. Yes, a hardship. To say "olive oil" is to roll the tongue and pucker the lips much like the great smack of taste the right olive oil rewards the mouth with. And having different ones for different applications is really beyond me. I say that as six different bottles sit on my counter as I write this!

Of course only two of those bottles are open. The first is my primary olive oil now for several years, Zatis ("Delightfully Turkish"). Zatis is also the name of a small wonderful restaurant on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, CA, not far from my home. I turned to Zatis olive oil after enjoying so many meals there. As a result I discovered an inexpensive (most often $13 per 750ml bottle) with lots of fruity taste and a warm feel on the tongue. (My olfactory abilities are quite limited, but my taste buds seem to make up for the deficiency. As a result, I have to stick my whole face in a bunch of basil but can find an after-taste in canola oil that most say doesn't exist.) So Zatis is my usual first choice, and several bottles usually await my use in my pantry.

But earlier this year Zatis was unavailable or possibly the price had temporarily risen. I can't remember which but the effect was the same--I went in search of a new mainstay. I tried several brands keeping cost a consideration. I use so much olive oil that I cannot afford those that approach or exceed $20 per bottle. So I tried sale brands and even the organic Zatis. None pleased me, and that left a vacancy on my counter.

Then I opened a small bottle ... yes, it was also inexpensive ... of a California olive oil I had purchased on a trip to Morro Bay. I thought I was buying something local and particular to that area, but I wasn't, as I will soon reveal. The big surprise was that I loved the stuff. Loved it. And the topper is that, when I mentioned my find to my dear friend Lee who participates in a California olive oil quality panel (I can't remember the name) and whom I consider a great expert in California food products, he said it was his latest best find! That sealed the deal for me. I'd found an alternative inexpensive olive oil that even an expert proclaimed a winner. (BTW Lee is known to readers as Jon Cory, author of A Plague of Scoundrels, a very funny novel about a failing stand-up comedian who time-travels back to London two weeks before the Black Plague.)

So what is my find? The company is California Olive Ranch out of the north Sacramento Valley. The website is www.californiaoliveranch.com and there you will find a wonderful variety of select olive oils and blends. All of them ... yes, all of them ... are wonderful. And you don't have to order them from the website. When I discovered this olive oil, I also found that I couldn't find more easily. That is until I left a request for help at the website. Mike Forbes, who represents California Olive Ranch in my area, responded with all the energy and information I needed--Whole Foods carries the full line and Piedmont Grocery, my first choice of places to shop, also would be carrying it again. (If you need to find it locally, do the same thing I did and visit the website. My impression is that this company is the real deal. They are quality conscious as well as customer responsive.)

So now my counter has multiple bottles of olive oil from California Olive Ranch and still that bottle of Zatis. I do horde my California Olive Ranch olive oil a little, meaning I won't put it in a saute pan, and I won't abandon my Zatis. I am one of those loyal cooks who stays with a choice of product and brand until something significant happens. But I don't expect anything to deter me from these ... and I won't be experimenting with olive oils again for quite sometime.

P.S. I think that America's Test Kitchens just discovered California Olive Ranch olive oils. Maybe my personal criteria for food products has merit! Well, truthfully, I don't really care who agrees with me. I like what I like, and that's it for me.