Egon
Epic Contributor
A piece of cheese, a loaf of bread, a dish of olive oil and the meal of your lifetime can be had!
Our Olive Oil, Grand Slam Win in European Competition
- Thread starter rox
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groundcover said:
Grouncover and everybody
I called igourmet today and they are out of 2 of our oils, athough they do have the Aglandau.
For AOC and Bouteillan
Steve At Larry痴 Brown Deer Market (Steve is Larry's son) in Milwaukee 414-355-9650 My husband has known very wel both Steve and Larry for 35 years.
http://www.larrysmarket.com/
For those in the Midwest and east coast.
He probably has some A.O.C. and might have some Bouteillan
For the western states how about contacting Steven Rosenberg at Liberty Heights Fresh in Salt Lake City
801-583-7374
http://www.libertyheightsfresh.com/
Steven is a new customer of ours and just got pallet of the new Bouteillan not more than 2 weeks ago.
In addition to being our customers they both happen to be really great guys.
DocHeb
Veteran Member
I saw from the Larry's Market website that you were from Elm Grove. What a small world! Over Easter weekend I went through Elm Grove, past the churches and the convent to Blue Ridge Blvd. We were up on the hill to drive past my Grandparent's homestead - what a trip down memory lane. I can remember sleeping in their house as a kid and hearing the train whistle down in the valley, and the sonic booms of the Air Force fighter jets in the 60's during the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Will you post when and where this year's AOC oil is available? - I did buy a bottle of Anglandau from iGourmet, but I've never had the "best" of anything before, and I don't want to miss the chance!
Will you post when and where this year's AOC oil is available? - I did buy a bottle of Anglandau from iGourmet, but I've never had the "best" of anything before, and I don't want to miss the chance!
groundcover
Veteran Member
Thanks ROX,
Just called Larry's market but the two guys that could do that had just left ,but they will call me back tomorrow.
Just called Larry's market but the two guys that could do that had just left ,but they will call me back tomorrow.
gsganzer
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Rox,
We've loved your oils with our dinners. We'll have to order some more before the rest of the world learns about you. Congratulations on your success. It's well deserved.
I might be in Paris for business in a few months, with my wife in tow. How far are you from Paris if we wanted to visit a world class olive operation?
We've loved your oils with our dinners. We'll have to order some more before the rest of the world learns about you. Congratulations on your success. It's well deserved.
I might be in Paris for business in a few months, with my wife in tow. How far are you from Paris if we wanted to visit a world class olive operation?
DocHeb said:
Doc,
Small world isn't it. My husband owned the Elm Grove Inn for 13 years as well as the Red Circle Inn in Nashota, well to be entirely accurate he co-owned both of them with his business partner, my husband ran the kitchens and his partner ran the dining rooms. His parter wanted to buy a third place and my husband didn't so they each took one restaurant and amicibly went thier seperate ways. My husband kept the Em Grove Inn. He was pretty well known in Wisconsin. So yup, that is us, guilty as charged. I just know I am going to be getting an e-mail from Steve at Larry's Market asking me when the next oil will arrive. I truly hope you enjoy our olive oil.
gsganzer said:
If you make it to France you are more than welcome to come for a visit. Best is probably take the TGV (Tres Grande Vite -translation very fast and grand) train from Paris to Aix en Provence. It should be about a 2 1/2 hour train ride if I am not mistaken. You are more than welcome to cme and visit.
Well no rest for the wicked as they say. I still ahve 7 more trees I really wanted to get prunned but I don't knwo if I will or not as now you can see the itty bitty buds forming. We still have 3 burn piles to burn, although they are not huge ones. The Director of toursim calls us last week, they want to throw a kick off party for the Flanerie (I am positive i did not spell that right) on our olive farm. A Flanerie is a program where the Tourism Office organizes group tours of various local businesses and cultural attractions. I think we are on for every Thursday for the rest of April and May, then they start it up again in July. Last year the kick off was held at a local soap factory, you know the old fashioned olive oil soaps, we have 2 nice soap factories in our city. We have a chocolate artist here who is pretty famous and us and a few other similar operations. he calls on a thursday and says they want to do it next friday.
So now we have to drop what we are doing and spruce up the property as the local politicians come, the press, officials from the District Headquarters of the Toursim Department etc. My husband has to stop his burning operation and switch out the sprayer on the tractor, put on the rototiller and till down the weeds in the fields. It was next on his agenda after burning and my gosh we only had 2 posibly 3 more days of buring and then we were done. Nope, stop what you are doing and switch to rototilling.
I realize that I cannot put off any longer installing a proper flower garden in the raised garden bed that is at driveway level and what you see when you first drive down our long driveway. Plus this is where they are going to set up the tables and speakers stands. Our nephew had planted a few lavendar bushes in there but basically it was all weeds. I have put it off for 4 years now because I knew how much work it was going to be. There were 2 big old rose bushes and this other flowering plant that was like a tree and those had to come out. I thought back to a post i had read here on TBN and I used the method of tying a steel cable around the bushes and pulling them out with the car. After several hours I did get them out, what a job that was. I spent 2 days finally putting in a proper flower garden that I was going to do anyway but now i ahd a deadline. I'll post a few pics of that.
While all this is going on, a store in Aix ordered oil, a store in Salon de provence orered oil, Houston Country Club finally gave me their order and it is huge, my cousin in Florida orderd more oil, a very upscale local hotel ordered more oil and we are trying to finish the spring work, spruce up the place and fill olive oil orders. It is crazy! Sadly i did not get any pictures of the party as I took all the guests on an abbreviated version of the guided tour I give to our visitors. What is a bit intersting is they typical way that any event similar to this is handled in france. it will always always finish with an aperitife. The city provides chips, orange juice, water and a few bottles of wine. A City employee comes during the day and delivers, and then another city employee comes and sets up and serves. now since the Tourism office threw the party you would think that they would serve the snacks afterwards, but no there is a civil servent whose job entails setting up and serving an aperitife. In the states you might get at the most coffee, but over here there will always be some type of liquor served, might be wine, champage, or a punch with liquor or pastise but it will be there. Also interesting is that nobody ever drinks to much. People have a glass, perhaps two and that is all.
We got most of the olive oil bottled and packed up and delivered, tomorow i have to fill all the remaining stock of our mini bottles 108 of them. We just bought 500 mini bottles about 6 weeks ago, I just can't believe how it seems like I am always filling mini bottles. I even sold 6 mini bottles at the Toursim office party.
If the Germans do not order more oil pretty soon they are not going to get any because our stock is very low. When that Der Feinschmecker magazine comes out in May they will be scrambling I bet. Mostly around here by July everyone is out of oilive oil. Well you have some small stock to fill your local orders but not enough to fill pallets. I think that is a good thing, it means that everyone is getting fresh olive oil and not oil that is 2 and 3 years old. I hope we get a lot of olives this year as our harvest from last fall was our famin year. One year you get a lot of fruit then the next year not much fruit. On or "fat" years we would sell some of our oil to the mill, but we hope that for this year not to do that and to keep all our oil for ourselves and sell it all.
At least if we do well in the Los Angeles County Fair Competition our American suppliers will have oil to sell, it is packaged up an in our basement ready to ship. I hope i can get that done next week. Next week my husband will burn and I'll working on shipping ut this order and probably help also with the farm work.
I can see why farmers will live on practically nothing and hang onto their life farming, and fight to not give it up. it is a wonderful wonderful life. Doesn't pay that well, we will never hit it rich growing and selling our olive oil, but we are our own boss, we decide what to do when, and we don't have any particualr hours to keep. The only 'deadlines" we have is when a customer orders olive oil, then we stop what we are doing and get the order out the next day. What is really nice is we don't have to deal with any complaints. We have never had one customer complaint ever, that is pretty sweet. Whatever a customer wants that is what we do.
Life has been busy on the olive farm and I am starting to figure out that it always will be busy on the farm, but we like it, I can't imagine doing anything else.
So now we have to drop what we are doing and spruce up the property as the local politicians come, the press, officials from the District Headquarters of the Toursim Department etc. My husband has to stop his burning operation and switch out the sprayer on the tractor, put on the rototiller and till down the weeds in the fields. It was next on his agenda after burning and my gosh we only had 2 posibly 3 more days of buring and then we were done. Nope, stop what you are doing and switch to rototilling.
I realize that I cannot put off any longer installing a proper flower garden in the raised garden bed that is at driveway level and what you see when you first drive down our long driveway. Plus this is where they are going to set up the tables and speakers stands. Our nephew had planted a few lavendar bushes in there but basically it was all weeds. I have put it off for 4 years now because I knew how much work it was going to be. There were 2 big old rose bushes and this other flowering plant that was like a tree and those had to come out. I thought back to a post i had read here on TBN and I used the method of tying a steel cable around the bushes and pulling them out with the car. After several hours I did get them out, what a job that was. I spent 2 days finally putting in a proper flower garden that I was going to do anyway but now i ahd a deadline. I'll post a few pics of that.
While all this is going on, a store in Aix ordered oil, a store in Salon de provence orered oil, Houston Country Club finally gave me their order and it is huge, my cousin in Florida orderd more oil, a very upscale local hotel ordered more oil and we are trying to finish the spring work, spruce up the place and fill olive oil orders. It is crazy! Sadly i did not get any pictures of the party as I took all the guests on an abbreviated version of the guided tour I give to our visitors. What is a bit intersting is they typical way that any event similar to this is handled in france. it will always always finish with an aperitife. The city provides chips, orange juice, water and a few bottles of wine. A City employee comes during the day and delivers, and then another city employee comes and sets up and serves. now since the Tourism office threw the party you would think that they would serve the snacks afterwards, but no there is a civil servent whose job entails setting up and serving an aperitife. In the states you might get at the most coffee, but over here there will always be some type of liquor served, might be wine, champage, or a punch with liquor or pastise but it will be there. Also interesting is that nobody ever drinks to much. People have a glass, perhaps two and that is all.
We got most of the olive oil bottled and packed up and delivered, tomorow i have to fill all the remaining stock of our mini bottles 108 of them. We just bought 500 mini bottles about 6 weeks ago, I just can't believe how it seems like I am always filling mini bottles. I even sold 6 mini bottles at the Toursim office party.
If the Germans do not order more oil pretty soon they are not going to get any because our stock is very low. When that Der Feinschmecker magazine comes out in May they will be scrambling I bet. Mostly around here by July everyone is out of oilive oil. Well you have some small stock to fill your local orders but not enough to fill pallets. I think that is a good thing, it means that everyone is getting fresh olive oil and not oil that is 2 and 3 years old. I hope we get a lot of olives this year as our harvest from last fall was our famin year. One year you get a lot of fruit then the next year not much fruit. On or "fat" years we would sell some of our oil to the mill, but we hope that for this year not to do that and to keep all our oil for ourselves and sell it all.
At least if we do well in the Los Angeles County Fair Competition our American suppliers will have oil to sell, it is packaged up an in our basement ready to ship. I hope i can get that done next week. Next week my husband will burn and I'll working on shipping ut this order and probably help also with the farm work.
I can see why farmers will live on practically nothing and hang onto their life farming, and fight to not give it up. it is a wonderful wonderful life. Doesn't pay that well, we will never hit it rich growing and selling our olive oil, but we are our own boss, we decide what to do when, and we don't have any particualr hours to keep. The only 'deadlines" we have is when a customer orders olive oil, then we stop what we are doing and get the order out the next day. What is really nice is we don't have to deal with any complaints. We have never had one customer complaint ever, that is pretty sweet. Whatever a customer wants that is what we do.
Life has been busy on the olive farm and I am starting to figure out that it always will be busy on the farm, but we like it, I can't imagine doing anything else.
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BTDT
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Good for you Rox. I'm guessing that your husband has overcome his hand injury (from last years pruning I think it was). That is great news, 4 gold medal awards. Nothing like the new kids on the block coming in and going right to the top of the competition. Sure sounds like a lot of work, though. I found it interesting that they grind up everything to make the oil. Once again, congratulations, and I hope your son realizes the worth of what he stands to inherit, not just dirt and trees, but a family business.
dmccarty
Super Star Member
Yes, I can believe it.
We just got back from Disney World. The wife and I go to eat really good food and our favorite restaurant is the California Grill. It is on top of the Contemporary Resort which is the building the monorail runs through the middle. The California Grill has the best all around food we have ever eaten. The sushi chief is named Yoshi and is self taught and one of the first women to make sushi. Sushi making has long been the domain of men but that has changed over the last decade or so.
Anywho, the one disappointment is that the olive oil the California Grill serves is just ok.
I suppose the Grill's oil might be pretty good but we have tasted Rox's olive oil and there is no comparison. Congradulations!
Later,
Dan
