Attendees, who traveled from eight countries, examined olive oil sensory analysis, best practices in farming and production, health benefits, nutrition, culinary applications and quality assurance over the week-long course.

An interdisciplinary and international team of renowned experts led the rigorous program, which incorporated tastings of 100 olive oil samples from every producing region.

Among the participants was Reema Shihadeh, who joined the program to help improve her family’s olive oil business.

“I wanted to deepen my understanding of what defines exceptional quality,” she said. “As an entrepreneur in the beauty and wellness space, I’m especially interested in its health benefits and its impact on skin health.”

“The Olive Oil Times Sommelier Course offered an incredible deep dive into every aspect of olive oil, from tasting and chemistry to harvesting and production,” she added. “I now feel more equipped to discuss the ingredient and look forward to sharing its health benefits with others.”

Olivia Ramos of Olivia LaBomba also joined the course to support her professional efforts, importing high-quality extra virgin olive oil from Spain. “The course was professional, comprehensive, well-planned and impeccably executed,” she said.

Meanwhile, Lela Krstevska said she enrolled to learn more about olive oil quality and health benefits as she plans for her future olive grove. 

“The quality in lectures, the diversity of experts and shared knowledge exceeded my expectations for this project,” she said. “Even more, getting to have a network of great like-minded people who share the same values is just priceless.”

With education squarely in mind, Angelo Lampousis joined the course in preparation for his new general education course at the City College of New York.

“[It was an] extraordinary opportunity to learn from distinguished instructors and from a number of discerning classmates from a wide variety of fields,” he said.

After retiring from the United States Department of Agriculture, Linda Feldman said she joined the course to nourish her love of learning and interest in “growing, producing, cooking and eating food.”

“The course was a perfect blend of information on growing and producing olives and olive oils, and learning how to identify the quality and characteristics of extra virgin olive oil,” she said.

“I loved how the instruction built on itself each day, enriching what I learned in previous sessions,” Feldman added. “The instructors were top notch. The 85 or more tastings over five days capped off the course.”

The Olive Oil Times Education Lab offers innovative courses and online programs to empower a generation of olive oil educators.

Enrollment is already open for the Olive Oil Times Sommelier Certification Program Europe, which will take place in ‘s‑Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, from September 22nd to 26th.

Over five days, an interdisciplinary team of renowned experts will instruct participants on olive oil sensory assessment, the latest production and milling techniques, health benefits and nutrition, culinary applications, farming best practices, quality assurance and advanced tasting techniques. 

Nearly 500 olive oil sommeliers, including producers, marketers, importers, merchants, food buyers, quality-control managers, chefs, journalists and lawyers have completed the course.

Alumni have gone on to win international quality awards, launch educational initiatives, write books, provide consulting services and develop programs to improve understanding of olive oil quality, culture and usage.

While many in the growing international network of experts and educators are olive oil professionals, program director Curtis Cord emphasized that the program is designed for anyone interested in olive oil quality. There are no prerequisites for the course.

At the most recent edition of the sommelier program in London, a diverse class of participants praised the quality of the instruction and how they would apply their newfound knowledge in personal and professional capacities.

Stefano Chessa of Oliveto Imports joined the course to further his initiative to market Italian extra virgin olive oils in London with greater authority.

“The event was exceptionally well-organized,” he said. “I now feel much more confident in my understanding of the extra virgin olive oil industry. I am certain this will enhance my interactions with current and future customers.”

Even producers with decades of experience found value in the instruction, learning about the latest trends in farming, milling and quality evaluation.

“I’ve been living and making olive oil in Tuscany for 20 years,” said Elizabeth Ward-Booth. “Many things pertaining to olive oil production have changed over these years. Now, moving to a new area within Tuscany with a reputation for excellent olive oil production, I aim to use my experience and new knowledge to produce the best quality olive oil.”

“I believe the wide knowledge gained regarding olive oil, particularly the importance of attention to detail in harvesting, milling and storage, will be invaluable in producing a fine quality olive oil,” she added.

Registration for the New York program is open on the Education Lab website. Enrollment is limited to 40 participants.

With their fruit, Francesco Travaglini produces the extra virgin olive oil brand Pressure. The revenues from its sale support Refettorio in Harlem, a New York City neighborhood outreach that provides food to vulnerable people.

Thanks to a collaboration between Parco dei Buoi, Italian food importer Gustiamo and the culinary and cultural collective Ghetto Gastro, 150 bottles of this high-quality product are marketed at a premium price to supply the community kitchen with approximately 2,000 meals every year—each bottle providing the equivalent of at least a dozen meals.

Refettorio in Harlem is part of the non-profit cultural project Food For Soul, which chef Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore founded to combat food waste and promote social inclusion.

Currently, 13 Refettorios operate worldwide. Based in regenerated spaces, they are community hubs equipped with kitchens, where socially and economically vulnerable people are served nutritious meals made with quality ingredients, including surplus food that would have otherwise been thrown away.

“It is a great achievement for us to bring relief to so many people with the olive oil produced from these two olive trees that are a landmark of our land,” Travaglini told Olive Oil Times, adding that their name was chosen because of their lush canopies and imposing figures that tower over the landscape of the hamlet of Carpineto.

The Pressure initiative began four years ago when Gustiamo’s founder, Beatrice Ughi, organized a visit to Travaglini’s farm with a group of guests, including chef Pierre Serrao.

Also known as Chef P, he is co-founder of the collective Ghetto Gastro, which brings together food experts and enthusiasts, artists, entrepreneurs and activists. Its mission is to combine gastronomy and art, promoting inclusion and economic empowerment.

“At Gustiamo, we aim to create a network between our Italian producers, customers and friends in the United States,” Ughi said. “We organize various events to bring them together, and every year we visit one of our olive oil producers during harvest.”

“We help the farmers pick olives, set up the nets, carry the fruit bins and more,” she added. “These hands-on experiences allow us to demonstrate to American chefs the significance of working the land and the challenges Italian farmers face. This direct connection with the farmers and their products fosters a deep bond and highlights the crucial relationship between the land and the quality of the products it yields.”

During the farm visit, Travaglini presented the Lions of Carpineto to the guests, pointing out that he had started using their olive oil for non-profit purposes years ago.

“Before my wife Pia and I were married, during university, we used to go back home to harvest with our families, which at that time made oil for home consumption and wholesale,” he recalled. “We always collected the Lion’s fruits at the end, which over time became a rite to conclude the season, even when later we founded the company and focused on high quality.”

Depending on the year, the two trees alone may yield up to 350 kilograms of olives, prompting the Molisian farmers to set them aside to create a limited-edition premium monovarietal.

“Several years ago we met Joseph, affectionately called by everybody Peppino, and we became close friends,” Travaglini said. “From a village in [the West African country of] Togo, he came to our country to study, as an Italian family financed his education.” 

“One day, he told us that a school in his birthplace had some issues, but there was no money to fix them,” he added. “Hence, we thought to sell the Lions’ olive oil and use the profits to help those people.”

With the charity sale, they raised €1,500. Peppino brought the money to his town, where he purchased books and stationery for the schoolchildren and food for those in need.

“It was there that we decided to use the Lions’ olive oil for a good cause,” Travaglini said. 

He added that Peppino later graduated with a food science and technology degree, became a researcher, and worked with important Italian companies. Then, he returned to Africa, working as a professor at a major university and operating in the food sector.

Peppino’s initiative generated much empathy among the group. Thus, Travaglini proposed that Serrao do something similar to one of the projects carried out by Ghetto Gastro.

“Serrao came up with the idea to support Refettorio, and I much appreciated that, since it is a place that promotes social cohesion and dignity based on the concept that solidarity can be made without forgetting quality,” Travaglini said. “Gustiamo set the whole thing up, bringing together the actors and logistics.”

The extra virgin olive oil was named Pressure, a word that can be understood from various perspectives, from olive pressing to the effort required to create a positive social impact.

“Gustiamo and Chef P [Serrao] have been friends for many years, and we deeply admire his work,” Ughi said. “When he proposed donating the proceeds to Food for Soul, specifically to support their Refettorio soup kitchen in Harlem, we were eager to get involved.” 

“Refettorio does outstanding work in Harlem, bringing dignity to the act of eating together, serving high-quality meals and promoting food reuse,” she added. “This collaboration fills us with immense pride. We are very selective about the products we offer through Gustiamo and the people we collaborate with, and if more opportunities like this arise, we would be thrilled to be part of them.”

Produced in the company-owned mill at Parco dei Buoi, Pressure is a monovarietal of Saligna di Larino, an autochthonous olive variety mainly used as a pollinator of Gentile di Larino. 

The company, which is certified organic and practices regenerative farming, cultivates these and other native olive varieties.

Frantoio, Moraiolo and Leccino complete the main orchard composition, which contains about 2,000 trees. 

Another 1,200 have been added recently to expand production and enhance biodiversity. In addition to extra virgin olive oil, the farm produces asparagus and fruit, including apricots, plums and peaches.

“The contrada of Carpineto, where the Lions are located, is dotted with centuries-old olive trees,” Travaglini said. “Given their age, these groves have an extensive planting layout. It is an interesting area with a soil rich in marine remains from prehistoric times, where it is still easy to find fossil shells.”

“These two majestic trees are not only an emblem of our land, they also show how good can beget good,” he added. “We are happy to be the first link in a virtuous chain that has a strong symbolic value, as it demonstrates how we all can do much with little, but above all that outstanding results can be achieved if we act together.”

• Gustiamo

Thirty-seven olive oil producers, retailers, enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are setting out to change that after completing the week-long Olive Oil Times Education Lab Sommelier Certification Program in Manhattan.

Attendees traveled from around the world for the five-day course, which covered olive oil sensory assessment, production best practices, health and nutrition, culinary applications and quality assurance.

Among them was Joe Maruca, the co-owner of TRE Olive. “I have wanted to enroll for the last few years,” he said. “My family has been in the olive oil industry for four generations, and I wanted to increase my knowledge and advance the family business.”

The Massachusetts-based company imports extra virgin olive oil from its dedicated olive groves in Calabria. Even after winning the industry’s most coveted quality award at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, Maruca said there is always more to learn.

“I loved the course. It exceeded my expectations and has motivated me to continue learning,” he said. “If you’re not learning, you’re not growing.”

Maruca plans to use what he learned about the science behind olive oil’s health benefits to enlighten customers and his team. “Education is the biggest takeaway, and I hope to continue learning going forward,” he said.

Rafael Buchabqui, the owner of Brazil-based Azeite Torrinhas, was another producer keen to expand his knowledge and network with like-minded people in New York.

“I wanted to explore this matter [the olive oil world] further to learn more about my product, discuss with other specialized olive oil sommeliers ways to improve our oils and educate the people around me,” he said.

Buchabqui said working to identify the vast range of aromas and flavors in nearly one hundred olive oil samples from 14 countries analyzed during the five-day course was interesting and challenging.

“[With this knowledge,] I will be more confident discussing our oils with our staff and in a better position to educate people around me,” he said.

Other producers joined the course to gain a global perspective on the olive oil sector.

“I decided to take the course to learn about the perspectives and opinions on olive oil from people in the U.S. and the Southern Hemisphere and to gain insight into the situation in the U.S.,” said Bastian Jordan, the owner of Jordan Olivenöl. “I aimed to use this information for my personal development in the olive oil industry and to make valuable contacts.”

Jordan, who produces olive oil on the Greek island of Lesvos and imports it to Düsseldorf in western Germany, has been involved in the olive oil business for all of his professional life. He said he appreciated the opportunity to meet new people and sharpen his sensory analysis skills.

“I will bring the insights back to the German Olive Oil Panel, where I am a member, to discuss the similarities and differences in sensory evaluations,” he said.

Along with farmers and millers, olive oil sales professionals traveled to New York’s Flatiron district to learn more about extra virgin olive oil and its key selling points – flavor and health.

“I fell in love with extra virgin olive oil while working in my previous role selling O‑Med, and now I’m fortunate enough to represent [the Spanish brand] Castillo de Canena on the East Coast,” said Shea Vinson. “I enrolled in the course to enhance my knowledge of extra virgin olive oil so that I could better communicate its value to my distributor, retail customers and end consumers.”

Vinson, who lives in New York City, said the course was comprehensive, with engaging presenters and essential information in every session.

“The sensory assessment portion was my favorite, although the food pairing section was a close second,” she said.

Vinson plans to use her mastery to improve sales communication and pass the information on to customers and the general public.

“I’d love to gain enough experience to serve on a tasting panel and ideally use what I’ve learned to curate my own retail selection,” she said.

Mark Lemmens, the founder of Olicious, traveled to New York from the Netherlands expecting to expand his tasting horizons and bring a new breadth of knowledge to his customers in the restaurant and retail industries.

“I’ve been in olive oil for four years, and I’m on a mission to educate consumers, retailers and professionals about the quality and health benefits of olive oil,” he said. “I also expected to learn more about olive varieties through the extensive tasting opportunities.”

Lemmens did not leave disappointed, praising the course structure and the diverse range of professionals who instructed each section.

“It was an awesome experience to be with so many people who share the same passion,” he added. “In particular, I highly appreciated the tasting sessions as well as the more technical sessions about the olive oil production process. It helped me better describe positive and negative attributes during tasting.”

Lemmens said he would employ what he learned in the course to inform his clients and incorporate the knowledge into his masterclass courses.

“I can inform customers better about the health benefits and how defects can occur during production,” he said. “As an olive oil sommelier, I earn more trust from professionals in retail and HORECA.”

Carline Brandao Procell, owner of Bella Nonnas Olive Oil & Vinegar in Shreveport, Louisiana, attended the course to refresh her olive oil knowledge and prepare to lead some olive grove tours next year.

“I thought the course was extremely informative and cleared up some confusion on my end regarding the harvesting and processing aspects of the olive oil business,” she said. “I especially enjoyed learning more about the healthful aspects of olive oil, specifically the polyphenols.”

“That is one aspect that I am frequently asked about in my store,” Procell added. “I find my customers are increasingly trying to improve their health. I am fortunate to be a source for them, of not only healthful oils and balsamics but also pertinent information regarding their dietary choices.”

Procell enjoys her role as an olive oil specialist and can now strengthen her explanations as to why customers should choose high-quality extra virgin olive oils.

“A winery has scheduled me for a food, wine and olive oil pairing class,” she said. “One family has booked me to speak to them at their Sunday dinner and direct them on ordering their olive oils. Two cruise lines have asked me to lead tours in the Mediterranean for the 2025 harvest season.”

While many program attendees are seasoned olive oil professionals seeking to expand their knowledge, others came to indulge their passion for the product and inform personal projects.

“I am a formally trained architect with a multidisciplinary design practice, so professionally, I am well outside the industry,” said Abir Ali, who traveled to New York from Detroit.

“Personally, though, olive oil is a big part of my life,” she added. “My mother is Lebanese, and I was raised in a culture where olives and olive oil made daily appearances in everything from food to beauty to medicine.”

Ali, who grew up with her father’s olive oil-infused Pakistani cooking, said she enjoyed the class immensely. She specifically cited the diversity of her fellow students and the instructors.

“The tastings were my favorite,” Ali said. “Challenging and training my sense of smell and taste was such a treat and a welcomed break from screens and meetings.”

Ali plans to utilize what she learned in the course to curate her own tasting experience.

“My design work, outside of the olive oil industry, revolves around building literal and figurative tables for people to meet and exchange,” she said. “Now, with the knowledge I learned in New York – and much continued practice – I can bring people together through a crafted community experience that revolves around the beauty and power of olive oil.”

Enrollment is open for the next Olive Oil Sommelier Program in London, which will be held in January.

About 50 olive oil buyers, brokers, chefs and media attended the event, along with 18 producers from around the world.

“I’ve been attending the Fancy Food Show [a specialty food event] for many years, but I always thought it would be great if we had a show just for olive oils,” NAOOA executive director Joseph R. Profaci told Olive Oil Times. “Getting people together to taste olive oils is always a fun thing.”

Profaci said that NAOOA hosted a similar event before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was well received. At that event, the NAOOA and participants raised money for diabetes research.

“This year, instead of fundraising, we decided to give our captive audience a presentation on sustainability which is, of course, a hot topic in general, but not one that is often talked about when it comes to cooking oils,” he said.

While the NAOOA frequently publishes educational material contrasting the organoleptic and health qualities of olive oils compared to other edible oils, Profaci took the opportunity to share research demonstrating why olive oil is the ‘greenest’ choice among edible oils.

The headline fact surrounding olive oil sustainability usually cites the average amount of carbon dioxide sequestered per kilogram of oil produced.

Profaci cited research from Juan Vilar Strategic Consultants, which found that olive oil production sequesters 11 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of oil produced. By comparison, the carbon capture rates of corn oil (9.8), sunflower oil (9), avocado oil (7.5), canola oil (4.5) and soybean oil (2.77) are lower.

However, research conducted in 2021 by the University of Jaén, Spain, found that not all groves sequester carbon equally. Those researchers said traditional rainfed olive groves sequester an estimated 5.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide for each kilogram of olive oil produced. This figure falls to 4.3  in irrigated olive groves and 2.7 in super-high-density groves.

With superior carbon storage capacity, olive groves sequester carbon in the soil for longer since they are a permanent crop, while many other edible oils are annual crops. When annual crops are burned or removed to plant the next year’s crop, sequestered carbon leaves the soil with them.

In his presentation, Profaci also pointed out that permanent crops help prevent erosion and allow for greater biodiversity on agricultural land than annual crops. Specifically, olive trees require significantly less water to grow than other edible oil crops and conserve soil minerals.

Besides farming, Profaci’s presentation highlighted that olive oil milling is more energy efficient than most oilseed production.

Most edible oils are produced chemically using powerful solvents, usually made from petroleum byproducts and require energy-intensive high heat to separate the oil from plant matter.

Olive oil production, on the other hand, is done mechanically. In the case of virgin or extra virgin olive oil, no heat is used during the process. Furthermore, many mills can be powered using renewable energy, such as turning waste products into biofuel or solar energy.

Profaci said the NAOOA decided to focus on sustainability at the event to emphasize to producers and sellers that olive oil is the environmentally-friendly option among edible oils.

“When [the United States Food and Drug Administration] proposed its update on the regulations over the use of the word ‘healthy,’ they followed what I have been saying all along: to determine what’s ‘healthy’ you must first look to the food group as a point of reference,” he said.

“Well, the same is true if you are looking at what’s healthy for the planet,” Profaci added. “Just as different proteins may have different carbon footprints and overall environmental impact due to the way they are produced, for example, the same is true of cooking oils, and people need to be aware of the differences.”

While olive oil sustainability took center stage, Profaci pointed out it was a trade event, so another focus was business. “It provides a venue for our members to tell their unique stories and sell some product.”

“But since it was a trade showcase, our primary goal was to tell olive oil’s sustainability story to the invited buyers, brokers and chefs, and, through the invited media, to consumers, all of whose purchasing decisions might be swayed when they hear it,” he added.

With Saturday’s event in the rearview mirror, Profaci is gathering feedback and looking ahead to next year’s event.

Participants from every value chain segment – producers to distributors and retailers – traveled to New York from as far as South Korea and Spain for the Olive Oil Times Education Lab’s five-day program on olive oil quality.

Over the week, participants learned about olive oil quality standards and production, sensory analysis, olive oil defects and positive attributes, chemistry, olive cultivars, health benefits, culinary applications and sustainability, among many other topics.

The award-winning producer Laurence Deprez was among the attendees, who co-owns Cultura Viva with her husband, Stefano Zenezini. Their Le Clarisse brand earned a Gold Award at the 2023 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“Our goal is to produce an exceptional extra virgin olive oil,” Deprez told Olive Oil Times. “So, we are constantly learning about olive oil, from agricultural practices to milling and selling.”

“Learning how to taste extra virgin olive oil and be able to make others appreciate it even more, seemed the right additional area of expertise to complement our knowledge,” she added.

Deprez praised the organization of the course and the knowledge of the expert panel of instructors. “I particularly loved the fact that we tasted olive oils from all over the world,” she added.

Deprez said she would use what she learned to become a “better ambassador” for her Le Clarisse brand and extra virgin olive oil.

She was far from the only one who said the quality of the instruction stood out to her. The sommelier course brought together a field of renowned experts, including NYIOOC panel leaders Carola Dummer and Antonio Lauro; master miller Pablo Voitzuk; award-winning producers Dinao and Diamantis Pierrakos, Timon and Christina Brataševec, Samir Bayraktar and Tim Balshi; chef and culinary educator Anthony Dewald; physician and author Simon Poole; and Olive Oil Times founder and NYIOOC president Curtis Cord.

“When it comes to assessing the quality of this course, a perfect score of 100 is the pinnacle,” Oleg Yakovlev, who traveled from Barcelona to attend the program, told Olive Oil Times. “Personally, I would bestow upon it a rating of 97, leaving room for potential theoretical advancements and future growth,” he added.

Yakovlev cited the presentations from award-winning miller Pablo Voitzuk as one part of the course that stood out for him.

“His profound expertise, coupled with his humble demeanor and articulate speaking style, made a lasting impact on me,” Yakovlev said. “Additionally, the incorporation of real-life cases that showcased diverse olive oil enterprises further enriched the overall learning experience.”

Yakovlev added that he plans to use what he has learned from the course in a new endeavor to become “a comprehensive source of information about olive oil.” He also plans to get involved in oleotourism in Barcelona.

“While this course is not my initial foray into studying the subject, having previously attended sessions in Spain, my objective in New York was to attain a broader, more comprehensive global perspective,” he said. “I am happy to announce that I have successfully accomplished this goal.”

Olive oil production is a noble pursuit to produce something that benefits human well-being while respecting and preserving the environment.

To that end, small-scale producer Lesley Imhof traveled to the course to learn how she could apply regenerative agricultural best practices on her five-hectare grove of formerly-abandoned centenary trees in Puglia, Italy, from which she produces olive oil.

“I enrolled in the sommelier certificate course because we are committed to producing the best quality organic extra virgin olive oil and because we believe in educating and promoting others on the virtues of olive oil consumption,” Imhof told Olive Oil Times. “I hope to use this knowledge to improve and optimize our olive oil production and to share with others our passion for what we do.”

While she said the entire course was excellent, Imhof particularly enjoyed sessions led by Dino and Diamantis Pierrakos, who produce the acclaimed Laconiko brand, and Samir Bayraktar, who traverses California’s Central Valley in a mobile mill to produce the award-winning Olive Truck extra virgin olive oils. Imhof said she would apply information gleaned at the course to continue her goal of producing high-quality organic extra virgin olive oil.

“We saw and still see the vast potential of the region and are committed to restoring a biodiverse ecosystem,” Imhof said. “It was our hope to give new life to this land.”

“In the years since we purchased the land, we have planted hundreds of new trees, including olive trees, pomegranate trees, fruit and almond trees, as well as vines which are endemic to the region, as part of our efforts to restore this vital ecosystem,” she added.

Professionals across the olive oil value chain said the course reinforced their passion for extra virgin olive oil and would help their careers.

“I decided to enroll in the course to give me a fuller understanding of the world of extra virgin olive oil,” Jay Nee told Olive Oil Times. “I am a sales director for Millpress, and about 70 percent of our business deals with green extra virgin olive oil.”

Millpress was among the winners at the 2023 NYIOOC, earning Gold Awards for its carefully-selected imported brands and oils produced by the founder Tim Balshi at his family mill, Almazaras Andres Aguilar. Balshi was among the instructors of the course.

“I loved the course; it was truly enlightening,” Nee said. “My favorite part was the passion stories of the presenters and how they are driven to impact the lives of all those who need to consume this amazing elixir.”

For Nee, a key part of the course was learning about olive oil defects and how to identify low-quality olive oils.

“It always surprises me how much bad olive oil there is,” he said. “The lack of effective oversight is a shame and frankly does a disservice to quality producers but also leaves so many people in the dark about the benefits of great extra virgin olive oil.”

“I will apply the information in my everyday dealings with the products I sell,” Nee added. “Becoming an ambassador for extra virgin olive oil is now a part of my DNA.”

Pre-enrollment is already open for the 2024 sommelier certificate programs in London and New York.

Sonia Angell, the co-author of the study and Deputy Commissioner at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told Olive Oil Times the study proves that policies to make restaurants healthier work.

“This tells us that policies that aim to make restaurant foods healthier can work,” she said. “That’s important because in New York City, people like to eat out. In fact, 20 percent of New York City adults said they ate restaurant food at least four times or more a week.”

Angell believes the ban has been successful.

“Trans fat in the diet increases the risk for heart disease. Just two percent of total calories (about 40 cal) from trans-fat has been shown to increase the incidence of coronary heart disease by 23 percent,” she said. “Reducing New Yorkers’ exposure to dangerous trans fat in restaurants, and thereby reducing their risk for a heart attack, was made possible by this policy.”

See Also: Health News

The results revealed that whilst overall blood trans fat levels had fallen by around 57 percent, people who frequently dined out benefited from an even greater decrease of around 62 percent; indicating that that the ban on TFA in restaurant foods has been effective in reducing cardiovascular risk.

The research team were not surprised by the results.

“We had implemented the ban with the intention reducing people’s exposure to trans fat – our study confirmed this happened,” Angell said.

“Overall, there was a 57 percent decline in trans fat in the blood in New York City residents,” she added. “That’s similar to what has been seen nationally during that general time frame (54 percent).”

“We didn’t know what the expected difference would be based upon frequency of eating out,” Angell continued. “That’s what we aimed to add to the public’s understanding with our study. People who ate out rarely had a 51 percent reduction in trans fat in their blood, while people who ate out four times a week or more had a 61 percent reduction in the trans fat in their blood.”

The study was undertaken as part of a health and nutrition survey, which examined participants’ dining habits in order to gauge the impact of the TFA ban. Two hundred and twelve blood samples taken in 2004 were compared against 247 drawn in 2013 and 2014.

The samples taken in 2013 and 2014 showed a drop in serum TFAs from 49.2 micromoles per liter to 21.3, which meant that New Yorkers’ trans fat levels had plunged overall by around 57 percent. In people who dined out four times a week or more, the decrease in serum TFAs was significantly greater at around 62 percent.

Angell also hailed the FDA’s 2018 ban on trans fats, which was rolled-out across all U.S. restaurants and grocery stores following a three year phase out period.

“We’re fortunate because as of June 2018, the FDA has mandated the removal of partially hydrogenated oils, the major source of trans fat, from the food supply at large,” she said. “That means that no matter where you live or eat, trans fat should no longer put your heart at risk.”

An earlier study undertaken by Yale concluded that strokes and heart attacks dropped when trans fats were banned in New York restaurants. The researchers reported a 6.2 percent decline in hospital admissions for heart attacks and strokes. The study also showed that the decline in hospital admissions became more significant three years on from the ban.

In 2007 when artificial trans fats were already being flagged as detrimental to heath, a study confirmed that consuming high levels was linked to a greater risk to coronary heart disease.

• American Journal of Public Health


• Science News


• Olive Oil Times

“We climbed those rough ladders, picked the olives with rakes,” she recalled of the olive harvest with the family. “Olive oil was among the first ingredients I came in contact with, and it was natural for me to appreciate this valuable element at the base of the Mediterranean diet, which I mainly use raw,” she told us. “It is essential in my cuisine and therefore it has become a very welcome guest at Gracie Mansion, also for its many benefits – in addition to enhancing flavors of food, it has the extraordinary property of being tasty, suitable for a healthy and balanced diet.”

Before New York, competence and passion took the forty-year-old qualified chef around the world. Following a training path which included the culinary school of Fiuggi and classes at the University of Madrid, she flanked great cooks and pastry chefs. She worked hard every summer, cooking at restaurants and hotels, and she was the executive chef of an Italian major league soccer team, catering events and managing the players’ diets. Then she moved to the United States where she worked as a private chef and consultant in California.

Thanks to her expertise in the field, Aranci was chosen to serve in a kitchen of great institutional and historical value at Gracie Mansion. And we had the intuition that she was selected not only for her familiarity with Italian cuisine but also for her style of cooking. Her best dishes are often referred to as ‘simply sophisticated,’ and liquid gold is a key element.

“It is not just a matter of eating. It is also about feeling good, and extra virgin olive oil embodies the essence of my idea of food, intended as nutrition and pleasure,” Aranci remarked. This is also what makes you appreciate her way of combining foods, which is natural and elegant.

“I love when my guests feel the authentic taste of the various ingredients, and extra virgin olive oil has the ability to enhance the individual flavors,” she considered. Thanks to its capacity to make dough light and soft, she often uses it with whole wheat flour to prepare healthy and tasty focaccia bread.

“Italian and Mexican cuisines are my specialties, but I like to experiment the styles and ingredients of Mediterranean coasts that I discovered during a beautiful working experience in Greece,” the chef pointed out.

Liquid gold is also the undisputed protagonist in the dishes she prepares for her six-year-old son, Sergio.

“He loves spaghetti or orecchiette prepared with Parmesan cheese and the extra virgin olive oil which my uncle Fernando Neri and my aunt Gabriella Marinari produce in the family olive grove of Parrano, in Umbria, under organic management,” she revealed. “I am so glad to impart to my son this taste and quality awareness.”

The annual summer show comprises North America’s most extensive specialty food and beverage event, connecting consumers and vendors with over 180,000 product offerings from 2,400 exhibitors hailing from 50 countries and regions, according to its organizers. This year, the exhibitor catalog listed roughly 270 companies at the event who were offering olive oil.

The general atmosphere among these olive oil exhibitors proved upbeat and optimistic for the industry’s continued potential. Some, like Thomas Sheridan of DiAlfredo Foods, came to the show for their first time with the intention of establishing new business connections, especially with retail outlets that claim a large portfolio of regional stores.

Others, such as representatives from the Argentina Olive Group, hoped to continue promoting their countries’ flourishing production capabilities. Julian Clusellas was able to boast that his farms have increased harvest yields from the previous year’s four million kilos to this year’s fifteen million.

While Clusellas explained that he plans to sell most of this harvest in bulk to the United States, where buyers have found his quality and pricing competitive, he said he also sells about 50,000 liters each year under the brand Valle de la Puerta domestically in Argentina and to markets in Western China. Argentinian representative Francisco Gobbee further elaborated that Argentina has ample natural resources to expand its output, ranging from more land to irrigation capabilities.

An array of producers from Tunisia were represented at the show to continue promoting their country’s commitment to bottlingextra virgin olive oil of an increasingly high caliber.

Representatives from the California Olive Oil Council turned their gaze toward promoting education to help build a market of more educated consumers in the United States. They stated that demand is rising, and in order to capitalize on this trend, the organization is working on a variety of consumer events. Membership in the council is also increasing, which the organization intends to parlay into a partnership with the highly successful “California Grown” coalition.

Executive Director Patricia Darragh noted that California growers are succeeding in meeting an increasing demand thanks to advancement in farming technologies, which have allowed olive trees to begin yielding substantial crops in as little as two years from planting. Darragh explained that she would like to see more plantings, even as she acknowledged the trend among larger producers who have taken to augmenting their growing but limited output with imports to satisfy domestic needs. Currently, California produces approximately four million gallons of olive oil annually.

Dewey Lucero, owner of the California olive oil brand Wild Groves, embodies the success that California companies have enjoyed in recent years. Originally from Corning, California, Lucero began his first olive oil company with a $50,000 loan from his parents in 2005. After partnering with a larger company, he was soon able to sell his stake and begin a new solo operation, along with some of the growers from his original project. Throughout the process, he learned the importance of connecting with consumers, staying realistic and being patient.

A post shared by CA Olive Oil•Gourmet Food•Gift (@wildgroves) on Jun 27, 2017 at 4:42pm PDT

Though every olive oil exhibitor extolled their genuine belief in the olive oil industry’s future, many echoed the same concerns. There was hope for a reform in labeling practices, which currently require bottles to show their contents’ countries of origin but do not provide any method for describing the proportions. Many cited consumer education as a means of abetting this issue until further regulations are put in place.

Producers like Brenda and Nick Wilkinson of the South African olive oil brand Rio Largo lauded the convention for bringing together a broad group of olive oil companies that stood apart for their “authenticity” and devotion to their products.

• Specialty Food Association


• Specialty Food Association

Scheduled just before the Fancy Food Show, the course aims to provide practical information for anyone with ties to the olive oil world, from retail executives and category managers to buyers and store employees.

Alexander Kicenik Devarenne, co-founder of EVA, explained that the class will be useful for just about anyone who is passionate about olive oil and looking to gain a foundation of knowledge and skills. “We are equipping people with sound information and decision-making tools that are useful and relevant, no matter where you fall along the continuum from producer to consumer.”

With an agenda spread over two days, the seminar promises valuable information and hands-on experiences provided by top individuals working in the olive oil and specialty food industries, including Leandro Ravetti, executive director of Boundary Bend in Australia and head of the technical team at Modern Olives, and Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s.

While some olive oil education events can run the gamut from being overly simplistic to exceedingly technical, this course was designed to strike an ideal balance by offering programming that is both authoritative and relevant to the audience but also fun and experiential. Instructors and speakers will deliver practical information to attendees and lead sessions rooted in an interactive, experience-based teaching style.

Devarenne expained, “We wanted to create a multi-level experience. People learn differently, but often most effectively when they’re engaged in a variety of ways. In this course, attendees will see photos, diagrams and charts, hear multiple perspectives on relevant topics, have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in dialogue with other participants, and of course, smell and taste oils.”

Participants will be treated to tastings of 38 oils over the two days, both good and bad. “There will be many more good than bad,” Devarenne assures. “But people have to try bad oils in order to understand the technique, mechanics and vocabulary of olive oil tasting.” Other topics covered will include olive oil testing, common olive oil defects and their causes, understanding olive oil standards, and effective olive oil marketing. Cooking with olive oil will also be a focus of the seminar. Breakfast and lunch will be provided each day, including a special pairing led by Bill Briwa, a chef from the Culinary Institute of America. He will also lead a lecture on using olive oil in the kitchen and at the table.

EVA created unique programming so that participants will leave ready to make educated choices in olive oil purchasing, handling and marketing, noted Devarenne. “Attendees will finish the course having gained a tremendous amount of knowledge.”

The Intensive Olive Oil Tasting Seminar for Buyers and Culinary Professionals will be held at the Fitch Learning Center at 55 Broad Street in New York’s Financial District. Space is limited. For more information, full agenda and list of instructors and speakers and to register, please visit the event website.

• Extra Virgin Alliance

As the second annual New York International Olive Oil Competition came to a close at the International Culinary Center last week, an olive oil tasting was held to sample a selection of this year’s entries. The reception was a chance for producers, importers, and conference attendees to reflect on the week’s seminars, panels, and conferences.

Diamando Stratakos, producer of an Athenolia-varietal oil that will be commercially available beginning this spring, began her business as a means to support the Greek economy and inform Americans on the high quality of Spartan products. After spending several years researching the industry, and months in the field with olive oil producers, Stratakos learned a great deal more from her interactions in New York. “The week has been a very uplifting experience,” she stated. “The competition is a place to learn that there are many different paths to the same goal: producing a higher quality oil and educating the public.”

Damien Duchamp, a second-time competitor, also spoke of the benefits of the competition at the tasting. His oil is not yet available in the Untied States, which makes it a “great find” for those who learn about it in New York. Discovering new oils is much of his motivation for participating in the competition. “Finding a new product and getting to taste it before anyone else; that itself is gold.” Duchamp’s Slovenian oil, Lisjak Gold Essense, won its second NYIOOC award with a silver medal this year.

The tasting was also an opportunity for producers and distributors to interact with the tasting panel because judges had been busy sampling hundreds of oils in previous days. Miciyo Yamada, the panel’s only Japanese tasting expert, reflected on her first judging at NYIOOC. “This is a unique competition,” she remarked. “It is by far the most international of those I have judged. All of the tasters are truly experts in their countries, and the judging is incredibly transparent.” Yamada became interested in olive oil 15 years ago, as a journalist writing for Japanese periodicals in Italy. “This is not only a very well-organized competition, but New York is a window to the world,” she commented. “Many Japanese magazines look to this competition and its results.”

Curtis Cord, the event organizer, announced the results immediately after the tasting. Amid the excitement, many producers called friends and family abroad to inform them of their medals and honors. More buzz took place as producers shared news of their awards with one another.

Gioanna Brorson produces Casale 3 Danesi, which won gold in its first entry to the competition. With an estate production of only 450 trees, Brorson oversees operation on an 18th-century Tuscan farm. “This is only our second year producing oil – the competition has been a great experience and a way for us to get our feet wet.”

Mahmut Cimet pondered his second year in the competition, after he was awarded two gold medals for his Ottoman Gourmet line from Turkey. “We are focused on the East Asian market, and are currently the biggest Turkish manufacturer in China.” Though his oil is not yet available in the US, Cimet noted that “the win will mean good press for us abroad; the Asian market has great trust in New York and this important competition.”

The National Organization of Olive Oil Tasters (ONAOO), home of Italy’s premier olive oil tasting school, will be hosting an immersive, five-day olive oil tasting course in New York City this March. Historically only offered at ONAOO’s headquarters in Imperia, Italy, the program is the first of its kind in the United States and will be held at the acclaimed restaurant Del Posto.

The comprehensive seminar was designed to expand America’s network of certified olive oil tasters and promises in-depth education and training in olive oil production processes, sensory development, and industry regulations as well as food and culinary applications. On the final two days of the course, participants will also have the opportunity to take a sensory certification examination to attain sensory analysis certification from ONAOO, which proves the olfactory senses are capable of sensing the subtle differences in aroma and taste of various olive oils.

The tuition for the course is $1,850, or $1,550 without the ONAOO certification.

Nicholas Coleman, chief oleologist at Eataly in New York, and Kathryn Tomajan, founder of Eat Retreat, are co-organizers of the course. They met while completing the tasting course themselves in Italy and have been working together since that time to bring this specialized training to the United States. Coleman and Tomajan are both certified olive oil tasters. Coleman’s experience also includes hand-harvesting olives in Tuscany, overseeing the pressing of olive oils, teaching oil courses, and training chefs and sommeliers within Mario Batali’s restaurant empire. He will be serving as a judge at the New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC) in April.

With a growing interest in higher-quality olive oils in America, more individuals are seeking to differentiate olive oils, properly taste them, and learn to incorporate different varieties into daily life. Furthermore, people who work in the food industry, professional chefs, restaurateurs, and others want to know how to identify high-quality olive oils and understand their culinary applications.

“Understanding how to taste for positive attributes and sensory defects is an essential ability for anyone that works with olive oil,” Coleman said. “This includes producers, importers, retailers, sommeliers and culinary professionals.”

The course organizers have limited enrollment to 20 participants to ensure an intimate and interactive experience for all involved. Attendees will be led through five days of taste training and sensory development by a colorful line-up of presenters.

Mauro Amelio, chemist director of scientific activities at ONAOO, will focus on sensory evaluation techniques and scoring, physical and chemical properties of olive oils, and administration of the 16-part certification exam. Marcello Scoccia, vice president and panel leader of ONAOO, will lead sessions on practical sensory evaluation and description of Mediterranean and global olive oils.

For expertise on olive oil production considerations from tree to table, course organizers have called upon Paul Vossen, a panel leader at this year’s NYIOOC and a farm advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension, to teach participants how growing and processing conditions impact the final product. Dr. Mary Flynn of Brown University will offer perspectives on olive oil and health through the lens of current scientific research on extra virgin olive oil compared with other fats. Tomajan rounds out the roster providing insights on the basics of sensory analysis as well as olive oil classification, marketing and labeling guidelines.

Culinary applications are also integral to the five-day program. Coleman and Chef Alicia Walter of La Scuola di Eataly, will present on food and wine pairings. An impressive set of Batali’s chefs including Mark Ladner, executive chef of Del Posto, Brooks Headley, executive pastry chef of Del Posto, Dave Pasternack, executive chef of Esca, and Gaetano Arnone, butcher and line cook at Babbo, are scheduled to perform culinary demonstrations to demystify olive oil and share techniques used in some of New York’s top restaurants.

Coleman and Tomajan hope to expand their offering of the course to other American cities in the future.

Further information on the course is available at the organizer’s website.

Across the U.S., olive oil specialty stores are popping up to the surprise and delight of culinary-minded consumers. In New York City, shoppers are visiting shops like O & CO., O Live Brooklyn and The Filling Station to purchase gourmet olive oils, infused vinegars, exotic salts and more.

Founded by Laura Nuter, The Filling Station is an independent outpost located in the high-profile Chelsea Market, New York’s premier destination for foodies with its famous restaurants, specialty grocers and retail shops, and food television production studios. Nuter is culinary-trained and formerly owned a cheese and charcuterie shop in Brooklyn. She took an entrepreneurial leap into the business of olive oil after stumbling upon a kitchenware store in Maine that also sold a selection of all-natural olive oils and vinegars. She first thought the concept would be perfect for her store in Brooklyn, but then realized it warranted a dedicated shop of its own. Nuter and her business partner opened The Filling Station in August, 2010.

With its fresh, cold press extra virgin olive oils, specialty oils, balsamic and wine vinegars, exotic salts, and craft beers, The Filling Station fits perfectly within the culinary mecca that is Chelsea Market. From the beginning, Nuter was focused on sourcing the best-quality oils in the world. Nuter and her staff, many of whom are also culinary-trained, work diligently to ensure that their products are consistently top-quality. The Filling Station team is well-educated on their oils, accompanying benefits and suggestions on how to use them.

The store creates a true tasting and culinary experience for its customers, encouraging shoppers to actively sample the curated assortment. The Filling Station is also environmentally–conscious: its wares are sold in reusable, bottles and jars which customers can refill with future purchases at a 10 percent discount. Nuter clearly considers her company’s footprint; the fact that everything can be refilled not only gives customers a reason to come back to the store, but also helps the planet.

The store’s unique location attracts neighborhood locals, tourists from across the globe, and city chefs and bartenders. Regular customers love that they have access to such high-quality extra virgin olive oils and typically stop in to stock up on non-infused varieties. Nuter has found that her loyal customers are very knowledgeable and well-informed about olive oil, asking about freshness, when the oils were pressed, and even polyphenols. Out-of-town visitors love the tasting experience and gravitate more toward the infused oils and dark balsamic vinegars. They often come into the store looking for oils and vinegars to pair with fresh bread, meats and vegetables purchased elsewhere in Chelsea Market.

When asked about the burgeoning trend of boutique olive oil shops opening up seemingly everywhere, Nuter likened it to the recent exploding interest in chocolate, coffee and craft beers. “People are demanding higher quality. They want to know where their oils come from and they want to try before they buy. Freshness, quality and flavor are incredibly important to customers.” She notes that while many of their oils, vinegars and salts come from overseas, the Filling Station supports local producers whenever possible. Their butternut squash and pumpkinseed oils come from nearby upstate New York.

Nuter is excited to announce that a second Manhattan location is in the works with a projected opening date of March 2014.

New York’s first “early harvest release,” hosted by De Medici Imports at the headquarters for the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, welcomed olive oil producers, experts, chefs, and writers to taste new oils from the Mediterranean’s first harvest this season.

Food journalist and television personality David Rosengarten opened the event’s panel discussion by defining the “dense statement of early harvest release” and the tradition of using “underripe olives, producing a green, wonderfully fruity, peppery oil.”

The event featured extra virgin olive oils from four producers. During the opening seminar, each producer had the opportunity to speak about terroir, production methods and the qualities that make his or her oil unique. Rosengarten observed that the producers, primarily estate operations, were boldly “commercializing early releases” to give consumers a taste of the freshest oils available. All four producers had oil samples flown in for the event.

The fifty or so attendees first heard from Gerard Veá, of VEÁ Olive Oil, in Lérida, Spain. In conversation with Emilio Mignucci, an owner of Philadelphia area specialty food merchants, Di Bruno Bros., Veá explained the careful temperature control involved in preserving the flavor of early release oils. He also spoke to the role of weather in subtleties of flavor and oil quality with each new harvest. VEÁ’s early harvest extra virgin olive oil is 100 percent Arbequina, a celebrated Catalan variety.

Olive oil expert and educator Nicholas Coleman then spoke with Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti, from Badia a Coltibuono, a Tuscan producer of great history and tradition. Discussing the evolving role of technology in olive cultivation, Prinetti described the challenges and rewards of producing olive oil and wine on the same estate. Illustrating the role of altitude on cultivation, Pinetti shared the vision of her father, whose innovation would eventually lead to the completely organic production at Badia a Coltibuono. “The health and integrity of the olives is of the utmost importance,” she remarked. Only 8,000 bottles of Albereto Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the estate’s early release, are available each year.

Vic Rallo, host of the television series “Eat! Drink! Italy!” with Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti from the Badia a Coltibuono estate

The seminar also saw Remy Reboul, producer of the Provençal Château d’Estoublon, in conversation with Curtis Cord, publisher of Olive Oil Times and founder of the New York International Olive Oil Competition. Cord recalled tasting Chateau d’Estoublon’s Grossane monovarietal in a small shop in St. Tropez 20 years ago that was his first experience with a “great olive oil.” Though the estate’s production technology has evolved since then, the careful cultivation has not. The estate has only 6,700 trees, and their olives are harvested by hand for optimal ripeness. Though he produces five monovarietal oils, Reboul’s early harvest, AOP Vallée des Baux de Provence is a blend that includes all five French olives.

Xandra Falco, in conversation with Jeffrey Shaw of the Trade Commission of Spain in New York, spoke about Marques de Griñon in Toledo — another producer with hundreds of years of history. Whereas the estate’s olives were once “crushed” at the mill, modern technology more delicately “slices” the olives, Falco explained. Falco’s production line is able to create and bottle olive oil in just 30 minutes, optimizing freshness, flavor and healthfulness. Her early harvest oil, Oleum Artis Extra Virgin, combines Arbequina and Picual varietals.

The tasting, which followed the speakers, allowed producers to share the robust flavors of their early harvests with seminar attendees. A celebration of small, high-quality olive oil makers, the event aimed to give much-needed positive press to olive oil imports. Steve Kaufman, Executive vice president of De Medici, and one of the organizers of the event, stated that the event was an opportunity to “demonstrate that better olive oils come from early harvesting and show off great oils.”

All four producers explained that embracing technology was critical to the preservation of their historic estates. As Reboul stated, “we have to stick to strict rules to produce the highest quality olive oil.” This display of European commitment to small production and quality was welcomed by American palates. As Rosengarten noted, with an increase in American consumer knowledge of olive oil, any opportunity to grow “American trust in extra virgin olive oil” is a great one.

The first New York International Olive Oil Competition will extend beyond the theater and judging rooms at The International Culinary Center and into restaurant kitchens throughout the City.

NYIOOC, APRIL 16–18, 2013

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Between April 15 and 19, the week of the competition, select New York restaurants will take part in the event by featuring contest entries in special pairing dishes.

Choosing from the more than 700 vying to be declared the best olive oils in the world, renowned chef Seamus Mullen’s Tertulia, in the West Village will show how extra virgin olive oils are paired with foods to enhance and elevate tastes.

Mullen’s first solo restaurant, Tertulia features olive oil as central to its modern take on Spanish cuisine.

In 2011, the New York Times awarded Tertulia two stars, reporting that the restaurant was, “great fun: a casual Spanish gastropub that sees its roots in the cider bars of northern Spain, and its success in a cuisine that is equal parts pork and seafood, salt and olive oil, garlic and smoked paprika.”

Writing for New York magazine, Adam Platt wrote that Mullen’s cooking at Tertulia, “is authentic in its essential Spanishness, but it’s also brawny, seasonal, and deeply flavored in a nuevo rústico, distinctly New York kind of way.” The magazine awarded Tertulia three stars.

Tertulia was also a 2012 finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s award for Best New Restaurant.

Mullen is sure to make great use of this year’s competing olive oils with his passion for Mediterranean cooking and fresh, seasonal ingredients. He is an accomplished author, recently publishing his first cookbook, “Hero Food: How Cooking with Delicious Things Can Make Us Feel Better,” and serving as a contributing columnist to Everyday with Rachael Ray.

Make a reservation at Tertulia

The name Steve Jenkins is synonymous with Guru, Expert, and Savant in the world of Mediterranean foodstuffs. In 1976, Jenkins was the first American cheesemonger inducted into France’s ancient and elite Guilde des Fromagers (he has since been elevated to Prud’homme, the guild’s highest status). Author of Cheese Primer and The Food Life, Jenkins was recently named one of the 25 most important people in the history of the American specialty foods industry by Gourmet Retailer.

He has introduced countless cheeses and other foodstuffs to New Yorkers (and subsequently the rest of the United States) by pioneering the importation of traditional and artisanal foods from over a hundred European companies to New York City’s wildly successful Fairway Markets. A regular guest on the award-winning NPR program, The Splendid Table, Jenkins knows his (food) stuff, and he wants you to know he’s not fooling around.

So how does one become an “Idiot Savant” as Jenkins so eloquently puts it? Years upon years upon years of studying, traveling, and finding joy in discovering new sights, sounds, smells, and tastes all over the world — that’s how.  Jenkins will be the first to tell you, “It’s out of a passion for being out there in that area, smelling those smells, eating in those joints, staying in those little hotels and driving, driving, driving, and talking to people.”

Raised in the suburban Midwest, Jenkins remembers the meals of his childhood with a wistful appetite — as though he’s not yet had his fill. “My mother and my grandmother were terrific cooks, but they were merely regional cooks — Missouri cooking via Kentucky. They were not at all versed in the Mediterranean style or with any kind of European food whatsoever. So I was without any sophistication other than a love for good ingredients that were prepared traditionally.”

“My grandmother and grandfather had a garden that was just mind-blowing. My joy probably stems from their garden-fresh lettuce salad wilted with vinegar and bacon grease, tomatoes, apples, carrots, all those wonderful things. There was no winemaking, no olive oil, we didn’t use fresh herbs in the Midwest, no seafood — we never had any seafood!   We really had very little to work with other than the things we loved like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, chili and fried chicken. Our country grew up so fast we had no time to create any tradition or any kind of heritage for food other than about a hundred years ago; butchering hogs on a farm, chopping the heads off of chickens, and a great garden near the kitchen.”

From fried chicken to French cheeses? Early on Jenkins decided that he wanted to be unassailable when it came to being approached in a food shop counter situation by anyone from any walk of life when asked about certain foodstuff, ingredient, procedure, recipe, domain — anything. “I wanted to know everything there was to know about all of the foods.”

“Every night as I’d lay in bed I’d be reading about the places, the people, and the things that they loved to put in their mouths. I did it all dealing with maps — I found that I had a great love and respect for maps, and I got such joy out of dreaming of jumping up in the air and coming down on this place on the map. I could only imagine what was going on in Savoie 400 years ago, I could only imagine what those woods looked like, how close Piemonte was and how it was a part of Savoie then.”

“It was all born out of studying maps and having an appreciation and regard for the fact that all of this food has nothing to do with country — it has to do with the specific regions and subregions it came from. Year after year, I’d get in a car with my maps and drive down all the little roads seeking out villages that gave their names to certain foodstuffs. You find that over 10 years you build up a nice body of knowledge, after 20 years you’re a bloody expert, after 30 years you’re a savant, and after 35 years it’s been such a joy, such a great way to fall asleep at night.”

Jenkins took his first trip to Europe in 1978, when he was 27 years old and working for Dean & DeLuca. Since then every single season that passes, he craves to be in Europe. “I’m lucky to be there two seasons of the year,” he says. “I always go in October, harvest time, and then I try to get there in the winter, spring or summer. I love going places in the dead of winter; you’re just invisible, yet at the same time you get more attention because no one really travels in the winter — if you’re there you’re serious, they take you seriously.”

In early 1979 there was very little quality olive oil available to NYC retailers. Jenkins evokes memories of big brand ‘pure’ grade olive oils found in Italian grocery stores, like Amastra, “Bright green for no good reason, and purportedly from Sicily.” Regular supermarkets sold Goya, Bertolli and Berio, and fancy shops like D&D and Balducci’s had access to phony brands of EVOO but “It wasn’t EVOO, and I could prove it!”  Just three olive oils — Hilaire Fabre, Plagniol and Louis de Regis — all purportedly from France, but undoubtedly from Spain bottled in France.

“At this point, I had read my Elizabeth David, and my MFK Fisher, my Roy Andries Degroot and my Richard Olney, and I knew there was a lot of serious olive oil out there. So I made it my business to get my hands on it. I started with the Tuscan Badia a Coltibuono and the Provencale L’Olivier (which I much later learned was also cheap Andalusian oil bottled in France.)”

By 1980, Jenkins had found his home in Fairway Markets, and was well along pioneering literally every great French cheese in France (and just starting in on Italy via Peck’s La Casa del Formaggio owned by the Stoppani brothers in Milan) when he was inspired to do the same with olive oil. “The one experience that galvanized me as to the notion of selling the best olive oil came after I fell into A l’Olivier, an olive oil shop on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris: Huge terracotta amphorae, fabulous chevron-shaped labels, crystalline bottles of all sizes, and dark green masculine tins all filled with extra virgin olive oil. Some of it may actually have come from olives grown in Provence! I realized no one in New York had any appreciation for olive oil, exactly as they had no knowledge, regard or desire for serious cheese.”

Jenkins and his mentor and founder of Fairway Markets, David Sneddon, began growing and harvesting their own olives in the Umbrian region of Italy — they’d been converted; olive oil coursed through their veins. Sneddon recalls picking and pressing the olives in November while the scent of burning grass lingered in the air and the cows descended from nearby mountains towards warmer microclimates for the winter. In April, when the two opened their olive oil for the first time, rubbed it on their hands, and held it up to their faces, they were enveloped by the scents of that cool November day — smoky earthy tones, reminding them of the back-breaking work it took to obtain those bottles of gold. Proving that it really is a labor of love.

Sometime after 9/11, Jenkins and one of his Fairway partners, Brian Riesenburger, got really involved in olive oil. “We just did what came naturally; we did the same thing with olive oil and vinegar that we had done with cheese — we set the standard for the industry, and we set the bar very high because we know so intimately the geography of the Mediterranean Basin.  We’re idiot savants. We bring our hobby into our stores, just like people do with stamps or bugs or butterflies or birds — for us it’s olive oil and vinegars, cheeses and all the Mediterranean ingredients.”

Jenkins stocks around 100 EVOOs at Fairway Markets, and travels to his groves in all seasons several times a year — some of them, of course, not all because they deal with too many. So he travels to new groves, and to those groves that are longest-standing and most important, like two in Extremadura and Andalusia, several in Western Sicily, in Catalonia, and many elsewhere, including Umbria, Sardinia, Tuscany, Molise, Liguria, Lazio, Puglia, and certainly all over the South of France, from Languedoc and the Camargue to Corsica and Provence.

“It’s a Mediterranean Basin phenomenon,” says Jenkins, “yes there’s olive oil in New Zealand, in Australia, in Lebanon, Algeria, and some in Egypt and Israel — and we’ll address it — but unless it tastes so good to us that we can’t resist it, we don’t include it. At Fairway Markets, we’re not inclusive of oils just because they exist, we are only inclusive of olive oil that passes what we think is a rigorous test: our own palette. That’s as subjective as can be, but it’s true. If we don’t love it, it ain’t gonna make the cut. There are no oils from Syria, Turkey, or even my beloved Tunisia that have met the standard, which is, ‘Do we love it?’

Jenkins imports 24 French oils, direct and exclusively from the producer, as well as a dozen very specific oils from Spanish farmers (“My Alcubilla Luque oils from near Baena are the only EVOOs available in the US that are still pressed the old way, from fanatically certified organic olives that yield a flor de aceite that is, a ‘pre-extra-virgin’ oil.”) and around ten very specific oils from locally famous Italian families in Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio and Sicily. “However, my most satisfying accomplishment is the 14 (not 12, not 15) very specific oils from Spain, France, Italy, Australia, California and Mexico (yes, Mexico!) that I induced the farmers to sell to me in barrels, unfiltered,” says Jenkins.

“I cut out more than the middle man when I buy by the barrel — I’m cutting out the broker, the importer, and the distributor. That oil came not just from a farmer, it came from the mill, which pressed the olives and sold the oil to a broker who sold it to the American importer who’s been nosing around looking for the cheapest oil he can get, who brings it into NY or wherever and sells it to the distributor who sells it to the retailer. There’s nobody between me in the store talking to people about the olive oil they just tasted, and the farmer who grew the olives.”

“Not to mention, I bottle these 14 oils myself — that’s half as expensive right there. The fancy European bottle and label easily adds on 5 to 7 euros — that’s how much the oil should cost!  Then I’m able to market each oil with a label I made myself that features everything I want my customer to know about the oil — where exactly it came from, when exactly it was harvested, how many hours elapsed between picking and mulching, the centrifuging, and how long it was allowed to decant; the variety of olive or olives, the things I smell in them, the things I taste in them, their textures, attacks, interims and finishes; and finally my favorite uses for each of them. I only wish the labels were bigger so I could put maps on the bottles.”

At Fairway Markets, you’ll find maps, posters, and photos of the olive groves splashed all over the store — “It’s olive oil porno everywhere you go!” Huge tasting cupboards hold a container filled with 24 to 36 different EVOOs in all of the stores. “People get excited about the particular area that these oils come from, and they make it their business to go there,” says Jenkins. “They’ll go to Barcelona and rent a car and drive down to the Ebro River Delta and see the Cocons oil from Catalonia that’s one of my absolute favorites, and they’ll see those flat stones for which the oil was named. They’ll go there because of what’s on the label of that bottle that acquaints you with exactly where it came from. It’s a geographic lesson — what’s cooler than that?”

Over the years, Jenkins has seen very little change within the olive oil industry, saying that he’s found that more and more people think they know something about olive oil, “But in truth, they are filled with lies. If you’re interested in olive oil and you go on the internet and try to learn more about it, there’s more and more misinformation, and nonsense, and absolute factual bologna than had there not been any internet at all. If customers don’t travel, at least go to one grove in the entire Mediterranean Basin, they’re not going to learn about olive oil.”

“My customers in the Tri-State area of NY are as sophisticated as any in the world, they’re well-traveled, yet they still had no grasp or regard for the region of olive oil — they knew not a wit. I had to teach them the same way I did about cheese — it took years to bring their appreciation up to where I can now have 7 cheese counters that are far better than anything in the world in terms of its breadth, depth, and quality. It’s the same thing with olive oil, it’s taking a long time to get people to pay some respect to it rather than just spending $40.00 on a half-liter with a beautiful label and thinking, ‘I must be pretty smart about olive oil.’ While in reality, the oil was 2 years old, it’s already stale, you paid 4 times what the oil was worth and you know nothing about where it came from.”

“My mission, on the other hand, is to make sure the customer knows exactly where their olive oil came from, pays as little as humanly possible, and the oil tastes better than anything he or she ever, ever put in their mouth — the finest ingredient they could possibly have anywhere in the world. That’s my mission. That’s what I’ve been building up over the past decade —  a rather sizable cadre of people who have really strong likes and dislikes for specific olive oils. That’s as good as it gets right there.”

So go to a Fairway Market, taste one or two or twenty olive oils from around the globe. Let the labels and photos transport you to faraway lands, down dusty roads, where the cows are still milked every morning, the eggs are fresh, and a garden overflows onto the kitchen counter. Ask Steve anything — really, anything — about food, and experience for yourself what a lifetime of knowledge and absolute passion for the highest quality ingredients is all about. Take a piece of the Mediterranean Basin home with you, drizzle it over fresh fish and wilted lettuce salad, dip a warm baguette into the depths of its fragrant golden pools, and really think about what you’re smelling and tasting. Does it pass your palette test? Do you love it? Maybe even enough to pull out a map and plan your next adventure? Because that’s what it’s all about — eating is experiencing, and when the eating is this good, it’s transcendental.

The two-day event open to the public will feature presentations on extra virgin olive oil appreciation, and culinary demonstrations by some of New York’s most celebrated chefs. An olive oil sensory evaluation course will be offered for industry professionals and enthusiasts.

An international panel of experts will judge the competition which is expected to draw hundreds of entries from every olive oil producing region. The winners will be recognized by the international press and share the prestige of taking the prize at the only extra virgin olive oil competition held at the “Crossroads of the World.”

Several of New York’s most important gourmet retailers have signed on to feature the winning oils in specially-designed displays, adding to the commercial benefits for the selected winners.

The event is co-produced by Jane Street Media, publisher of the Olive Oil Times which has become the leading source of olive oil information for consumers and industry professionals.

The New York International Olive Oil Competition will take place in April, 2013.

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For more information contact: Jane Street Media and watch for the launch of nyiooc.org, the official event website.