The care that goes into Il Molino olive oil is tremendous.  The olives come from centuries old Sciuga family farm that adheres to organic farming standards.  The family had the olive oil press right at site so there is not much time elapsed from the harvest to press.  What comes next is pretty unique even for our standards.  The olives get de-stoned first!  Then the oil is extracted.  Taking the pits out and extracting olive oil rather than crushing the whole olives with pits result in a higher level of hydroxytyrosol, phenols and low acidity (read: better antioxidant.  Again, read: better for you.  High phenols are why olive oil is such a healthy food).  But all chemistry and health talk aside; I love the flavor of this DOP oil.  It’s what you’d expect from a single varietal Frantoio olive oil from Tuscany–green, bold with good pepper at the end.  Yet this oil also displays such subtle herbaceous notes without any unpleasant or aggressive bite.  I love it on my arugula, tomato and parm sliver salad and I love it drizzled over toasted Italian bread with garlic rubbed on it.  Simple and delicious.

We have numerous amazing vinegars at Zingerman’s and I’d be hard pressed to tell you which would be my desert island pick.  But lately I’ve been really enjoying Gegenbauer Paprika vinegar.  I love all things spicy and this vinegar really hits the spot.  

It is artisanally made with care, just like fine wine.  The peppers are grown in the rich pure soil of Austria’s alpine foothill and are hand picked at their freshest.  The juices of these peppers are cold pressed and then converted into vinegar.  It is natural and unfiltered and is wonderful on a salad or vegetables.  

My favorite way to use it is on my bite-y salad composed of romaine lettuce or nappa cabbage, generous helpings of red, orange and yellow bell peppers, scallions, fresh pears and almonds.  I just made a simple vinegarette with a splash of this vinegar, a couple drops of nutty oil (really! you don’t need much oil at all with this vinegar), toasted sesame seeds.  With so much flavor, I often forget that this salad is so healthy.

Making soy sauce at home is a long drawn out process. I should know–my grandmother hung homemade soy blocks for fermenting from her ceiling facing the courtyard in her old house and she and my mother made miso and soy sauce from scratch. The whole process takes from winter to spring but it sure did taste good.

But I am an American grown daughter. I have not used a homemade soy sauce since childhood. And with soy beans being one of the most genetically modified crops here, I would not even know where to buy high quality soy beans, the most fundamental ingredient. For convenience sake, I had mostly been using a store bought soy sauce from a Japanese corporation that shall remain nameless. Like most grocery-bought soy sauces out there, it tastes like dark salt water and not even great tasting salt water at that. Walking into an Asian grocery store to find a good bottle of soy sauce when you do not speak a common language can be intimidating, too.

So when I read a New York Times article about American made artisanal soy sauce , I was curious, even skeptical. All the buzz words were there–non-genetically modified soy beans from a local farmer, organic wheat, filtered spring water–but does it taste good? What is this business with aging it in bourbon barrels? I had to taste it. I tasted it next to mass produced soy sauces as well as others marketed as organic and/or artisanal. The flavor is brothy, savory and meaty with just a hint of wood. It’s quite lovely. Is it the best soy sauce out there? No, that title belongs to my grandmother, but this one is a good substitute.

I will be straight with you and tell you that I will not be using this to marinate 5 lbs of barbeque ribs as I am known to do. I use it sparingly, simply and savor it. My favorite way to use Bluegrass soy sauce: make a fresh bowl of rice, top it with an over-easy fried egg, a pat of good butter and drizzle it with the soy sauce. Easy. Delicious. Perfect.