Recipes, techniques, tools, and other stuff to help you make your own real good food

Eat

Restaurant reviews from Portland, Oregon, USA

"Mr. Dixon's reviews sounded so tasty they made me want to buy a plane ticket and spend the next few months there."

Think

Sustainable agriculture, farmers markets, advocacy organizations, & assorted rantings

Untouched Tuscany

Affordable Italian vacation rentals, from humble farmhouse to luxury villa

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And what makes him think he knows so damn much?

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Latest News

My suppliers in Italy tell me the harvest was poor and olive oil yields low. And the dollar continues to drop, making anything purchasedf with euros more expensive. But I’m setting up the shipments and will have a good supply of Italian extra virgin olive oil for the coming season.

California olive oil producers are making much better oil. I’ve got freshly pressed Arbequina for my restaurant customers, and I plan to offer at least a couple of different oils from our neighbor to the south.

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Archives

Olive Oil Fraud

TheNew Yorker had a fascinating article about adulterated olive oil, comparing the potential profits from mixing seed oils with olive oil to the drug trade. There's a lot of inferior olive oil on the market, so if you want to make sure you're getting the good stuff, find out what extra virgin really means.

Going to the Dogs

I've been making dog food for our pugs for years, and with the recent pet food recall, maybe you should, too.

Culinate

I'm writing for a new food web site called Culinate. Head on over to read my stories about deciphering olive oil labels, the true meaning of extra virgin, and my own olive oil epiphany. There are also a few recipes of mine, and lots of other good stuff.

Remembrance of Food Past

A reader sent me this story about eating local, seasonal foods near the mouth of the Columbia in the 1930s.

mmmm, salty

It seems like everybody's got an opinion about my roles as food writer and vendor. I've pulled them all together in one easy-to-find spot.

Older Reviews

I'm trying to get dates on the older reviews here, but if you don't see one, assume that the review is, well, a bit stale. Things can change quickly in the restaurant biz, and my reviews are just a snapshot of a few weeks eating time. Always call to make sure the place is still open, and don't just take my word for what's good. There's no accounting for taste.

I import the kind of olive oil you usually have to go to Italy to find, and I do it mostly to supply my own habit. These are what are sometimes called "estate" olive oils, the limited production of a single farm or grower.

I've also imported the Slow Food Award-winning sea salt from Necton called flor de sal.

Here's what I've got:

Olio Novo, from the Colline Pisano of western Tuscany

Leonforte, from the arid interior of Sicily

Don Alfonso, from one of Italy's best restaurants

Bettini, from the Umbrian hill town of Montefalco

Madre Terra, from the southwest coast of Sicily

How I got into the olive oil business.

Do you really need at least two kinds of olive oil in your pantry?

Just what does extra virgin mean anyway? How do you taste different olive oils? Find out in Dica Olio, a sporadically published bulletin about olive oil.