Food Interlude III: Olive Oil

As far as I am concerned, there are two fundamental types of cuisine: simple, and complex. I love preparing both, but for the sake of convenience and also because it seems foolish to expend tremendous amounts of effort on a meal for one--especially when that one is prone to devouring dinner in a time better measured in seconds than minutes--I typically lean toward simple.

Simple is hardly the same as plain or uninteresting; on the contrary, fabulous food can be prepared using a few easy techniques and a few basic ingredients. These days a typical meal includes a mixed green salad, something off the grill, and, if I'm feeling particularly esurient, some rice and maybe even some sautéed greens. My culinary arsenal for these meals rarely consists of more than salt, pepper, maybe a little butter, something acetic--either a nice vinegar or lemon juice--and olive oil.

Of these, olive oil is by far most important and should be treated accordingly. I know that many people are put off by the cost of a quality bottle of olive oil, but they shouldn't be. Good olive oil is used sparingly, and as a result a 750 ml bottle can last six months or more. The secret is to keep a lower-quality extra virgin olive oil on hand for cooking--I use Costco's house brand, Kirkland, which costs maybe $10 for a half-gallon, and it works just fine--and to save the best olive oil for finishing dishes, for salad dressings, and for dips. Cooking robs quality olive oils of their special properties anyway, or so I've been told (and for economic reasons I choose to believe it without further question), so there's no point in wasting it on a sauté or to brown meat. Wait until the dish is nearly done, then hit it with a little zetz of the good stuff.

My favorite olive oil is Novello di Macina. which means (roughly, my Italian is atroce) "new from the grinder," a well-earned designation given that the olives are ground within twelve hours of harvest. Novello only appears on shelves once a year (usually in December); it the first product of that year's olive harvest, making it the olive oil equivalent of Beaujolais Nouveau, except that Beaujolais Nouveau is vile cat piss I wouldn't serve my worst enemy and Novello di Macina is a product to be cherished and enjoyed daily. No small difference there.

Novello is an unfiltered oil, cloudy and yellow-green. It has a big, fruity flavor and a rich texture that coats the tongue. There's nothing subtle about it; it's what I imagine foodies mean when they describe a flavor as "rustic." I buy two bottles of the stuff as soon as it hits the shelves, and that usually carries me through the year. That's $50 well invested, as far as I'm concerned. It is fabulous in salads and a great finish to pasta dishes, and it is wonderful in skordalia, baba ganoush, hummus, and taramasalata, although I must admit it is painful to use so much good olive oil on a single dish. If you come to my house and these items are served, we damn well better finish them or there will be tears shed during clean up. Mine, mostly.

Store olive oil in a cool dark place and it will last until you have used it all up. Open up the bottle and take a whiff when you're feeling blue; it will make you feel better and will get your mind working on dinner plans, both good things. Give nice bottles of olive oil as gifts; if the recipients aren't appreciative, you know they are not worthy of your friendship, or anyone's. I've heard that olive oil is good for you; I'm glad, but I don't care. Tofu is good for you and I won't touch the stuff, because it tastes like nothing. If you told me daily olive oil consumption would take five years off my life, I'd probably give it some thought, then rationalize that those years are coming off the end when I'll (presumably, hopefully (sic)) be very old and that that day is probably a long way off anyway, and that I am hungry right now. And then I would dress my salad with my good olive oil.

One final note: do not come to my house--or even speak to me, ever, for that matter--if you refer to extra virgin olive oil as 'E V O O.' First, the whole point of an abbreviation is to abbreviate. Since it takes exactly as long to say 'E V O O' as to say 'extra virgin olive oil,' the former serves no useful purpose. The only possible remaining purpose for the term is to be precious, and that is a good way to get your neck wrung around here. Second, the term 'E V O O' signifies at the very least a tolerance for Rachel Ray, and we'll have none of that here. My kitchen is barred to Satan's minions, most particularly to those who perceive themselves as much, much more adorable than they actually are. Her fame is a compelling piece of evidence in the case against the existence of God. I am too gentle a soul to wish bodily harm upon anyone but a despot, but if Rachel Ray were to come down with an inconvenient but not painful case of laryngitis from which she never recovered, I would probably be cool with that.

So there you go.