I was trying to think about anything unusual relating to food that I had had recently. Something that might make a good gift for Christmas or just something interesting to try. A gift for yourself, if you would.

About 2 months ago I was invited to the grand opening of an artisanal olive oil producer, Lucero Olive Oils. They are located in Northern California and produce a wonderful variety of olive oils, balsamic vinegars and tapenades and mustards. Everything that I tried was good.

However, the most interesting thing I had was Chocolate Olive Oil over ice cream. It was delicious and unusual. A wonderful chocolate flavor with the silky (I was thinking slippery but silky makes better marketing) mouthfeel of olive oil. And still the hints of olive. It was extremely good over vanilla ice cream. I also tried their lemon infused olive oil which was also very good over ice cream and I think would be very good drizzled over some linguine along with some toasted pine nuts and sizzled garlic.

A must for the Choco-Holic who has everything.

If you want to try something different and delicious, order a bottle of the Chocolate Olive Oil. You can show off to your friends and give them an experience that they probably never had before. Be the first one on your block to have some.

Erik Nabler,

N.B. Guest blogger Erik Nabler blogs regularly about drinks and drinking at the Liquor Locusts.

Paula Deen on Dancing with Butter!!!

Happy Holidays, y’all! Here is a lovely little interview from Vanity Fair, in which that li’l pat of sunshine Paula Deen holds forth on Thanksgiving etiquette, doggy bowel movements and their relation to the Survival Principle, and the infamous butter scene in Last Tango in Paris. You must read it. No, you MUST, y’all.

A snippet:

Do you have a Thanksgiving recipe that’s made entirely out of butter?

Just butter? I don’t know. I guess you could unwrap a stick of butter and pour a bottle of jam over it. That might be tasty. But I wouldn’t want to serve it to my family at Thanksgiving.

You are the Butter Queen, right?

Yeah, I have been called that. I do love butter. I don’t care what you’re fixin’, butter makes everything taste better.

I’m assuming your butter enthusiasm has nothing to do with the movie Last Tango in Paris.

I don’t think so. Do they eat a lot of butter in that film?

Well, they don’t eat it exactly.

What did they do with it?

[Long pause.] Uh… I don’t think I know how to explain it without embarrassing both of us.

Is it something dirty? [Laughs.]

You could say that, sure.

Does it have something to do with how your wife got pregnant?

Actually, no. You have the wrong … It’s a different, you know… It’s lower down on the … [Long pause.] Wow, this is amazing. You’ve actually turned the tables on me. I’m flummoxed!

Well honey, you’re the one who brought it up.

Here’s what I can tell you. Marlon Brando used butter in a slightly more intimate way than you do on your Food Network shows.

Ooooh. Well I will definitely check that out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to awkwardly change the subject.

If you need to.

I think that poor interviewer has the vapors!

Like buttah

This weekend, my dreams came true. I discovered sriracha packets at a Hawaiian BBQ joint in LA. I stuffed my pockets full of these little pouches of spicy loving, and I vow never to be without them again.

Photo Charlotte Ommedal

Only the Brits could hatch a scheme like this. Starting June 24th, London’s Barbican Art Gallery will be selling “Occult Jam” made by darlings of the culinary art world, Bompas and Parr. With names straight from Hogwarts, the pair Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, are famous for their wild food related adventures, having previously create a jelly shaped like St. Paul’s Cathedral, a futurist aerobanquet, and scratch-and-sniff cinema, have now created a series of jams infused with “powerful artifacts.” For purchase will be absinthe and pineapple jam made with sand from the pyramids; plum and oak jelly with wood from Lord Nelson’s ship The HMS Victory; and most of all, milk jam with a speck of Princess Di’s hair.

What are you waiting for? It’s time to book those tickets to London. It would be hell if they ran out before you snagged a jar.