If you’re already a fan of McEvoy Ranch’s olive oils like I am, you’re going to fall head over heels for its flavored olive oils.
The award-winning Marin County producer of certified organic olive oils just released its 2018 Lemon and Jalapeno olive oils. While some mass-produced flavored olive oils get extracts added to them after pressing, McEvoy’s actually crushes lemons and jalapenos together with its estate-grown olives.
I had a chance to try samples of both. Because both ingredients are crushed together, there’s a greater depth of flavor. With the Lemon, it’s not just all zing; there’s also that wonderful bitter edge and perfume from lemon rind. With the Jalapeno, there’s definitely a throaty kick of heat, about medium in intensity, but also fresh, vivid grassy and bell pepper flavors.
The Lemon would be dazzling baked into cakes or tossed into a vegetable or green salad or drizzled over grilled seafood or roasted chicken.
The Jalapeno could star in scrambled eggs, get drizzled over corn bread, spooned over grilled shrimp or as a garnish afloat in cauliflower soup or gazpacho.
The 375ml bottles of oil are $29 each.
WINNER OF THE FOOD GAL CONTEST
In last week’s Food Gal contest, I asked you to tell me the best lesson you’ve learned over the years from the work that you do.
The winner will receive a “Best Sellers Sampler” of East Coast seafood specialties from Cameron’s Seafood (valued at $99.99).
Congrats to:
Caroline Kim, who wrote, “The best lesson I’ve learned over the years from working has to be to STAY HUMBLE. I started working in my parents’ dry cleaners at age 10 (typical immigrant story). I excelled in school and went to an amazing, picturesque private college and graduated already ahead of where my parents had gotten in education. However, they decided to have a career change and risk it all to move to LA from the quiet midwest and open up a clothing manufacturing business after much convincing from a family friend. They asked me to help and I moved out West with my fancy college degree only to find myself in a sweatshop situation, using my high school Spanish to communicate with our factory workers. At one point, I was turning fabric belts inside out and ironing them at 10pm and broke down. How could I be doing this “menial†labor when I had studied so much and so hard? But work is work. And for my parents to be successful, they needed to save those few pennies a belt and put me to work. In the end, my parents realized this was a toxic, horrible business where you could only make money by cheating others and they gave it all up and their life savings to move back to the Midwest. I have moved on to desk jobs since then, more “worthy†of my college degree but I remain humbled by all and any work that people do and teach my children to appreciate all those who support businesses – from the people who clean up their floors at schools to the server who hands them their fancy bobas. Stay humble because anyone who is working has a story behind them.”
For those who didn’t win, you can still get $10 off your first order at Cameron’s Seafood by clicking the link here.