The best olive oil comes from Italy or Spain, right? Maybe so, but California olive growers are working to change that. Wondering if California already sells olive oils as good as America's favorite imports, America's Test Kitchen anonymously purchased 10 extra-virgin oils from the state's largest and most established producers to see if a domestic oil could replace Europe as the winner in this intercontinental battle. More

When butter is clarified—the milk fats boiled out and separated, until only thick, golden butter fat remains—its smoke point is raised to, well, let's just say it's high enough to sear a thick steak or panfry a potato in. It also keeps longer than whole butter and imparts a concentrated, caramelly and delightfully nutty flavor More

guardian.co.ukSo you might have cleared space on your balcony for a container garden, or even planted a little plot in your backyard. Still, you may not have the time, space, or expertise to branch out--say, with a peach tree, or an olive tree, or even a few pigs. But if you want a farm harvest without the farm, consider adoption. At the Masumoto Family Farm near Fresno, California--at times a supplier to Blue Hill, Per Se, and Chez Panisse--Elberta peach trees are available for "adoption." Each winter, prospective owners apply to own a peach tree; the Masumotos take care of planting, pruning, and raising your baby. Then at midsummer harvest, adopters come out to the farm to pick the trees... More

Photograph by roboppy on Flickr. Aggressive olive farming techniques for cheap, mass-produced olive oil now means extreme water shortages in Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Farms that produce the low-priced oils are driving out the small olive farmers who produce the quality goods—and are also leading to other "serious environmental problems" such as soil erosion. Inappropriate weed-control and soil control, combined with the inherently high risk of erosion in many olive-farming areas, is leading to desertification on a wide scale in some of the main producing regions. If these irresponsible farming methods continue, we might be demanding for butter instead of olive oil at our favorite restaurants.... More

If you've watched enough '80s cop dramas, you're probably familiar with the concept of shady international cartels "cutting" illicit drugs to make a shipment go farther on the street. But who would have thought the same thing would go down with olive oil? This week's New Yorker magazine has a lengthy feature on fraud in the olive oil business, detailing recent scandals of hazelnut oil–adulterated extra-virgins while delving into what turns out to be a long history of such shenanigans. Most olive-oil frauds are easy to detect using chemical tests. In February, 2005, the N.A.S. Carabinieri broke up a criminal ring operating in several regions of Italy, and confiscated a hundred thousand litres of fake olive oil, with a street... More