Steve Pope wrote:
>
> Mark Thorson > wrote:
>
> >On another topic, I've been thinking I've been limiting
> >myself too much by buying only their California olive oils.
> >This time, I bought their only Italian (Sicilian, actually)
> >olive oil. I just tried it a few minutes ago, and I was
> >not impressed.
>
> Yes, that's not a particularly good one. What you might want
> to try is their so-called "President's Reserve" Italian EVOO
> which is a mix of Sicilian and Puglian oil. It's better than
> 80% of the pricey oils and has a high enough smoke point you
> can sautee with it. It's also pretty inexpensive.

I tried it again on what I usually use olive oil for.
My mistake was testing it on white rice in the belief
a bland background was best for making an evaluation.
No, the rice I make almost every day, which is brown
rice with chopped green onions, one minced habanero
pepper (when I can get them, otherwise Thai, et al),
Trader Joe's low sodium soy sauce, and the olive oil
is the best background, because I'm familiar with it.
Despite all these strong flavors, I could discern a
difference. It's been over six months since I made
white rice. Substituting the oil in something I make
almost every day is a more sensitive comparison.

The Sicilian oil costs the same as the California oil,
but I think it's better. The best description I could
give is "butteriness". I think it has more of that.

Then, it occurred to me that dissolving a very small
amount of genuine butter in olive oil would greatly
increase the butteriness flavor. I'm not sure I would
find that too objectionable an activity, though it's
certainly illegal if not disclosed on the label.

I don't mean to imply anybody's doing that, but it
seems like a good idea. Maybe I should take the
California oil and see if I can improve it to the
Sicilian level by adding the strongest butter I can
find, like a cultured Irish butter.

Another possibility is the addition of a tiny amount
of diacetyl, the microwave popcorn atom. That is
bioidentical to natural diacetyl which is the main
flavor component in natural butter. It's terribly
overused in movie theater popcorn, but amounts that
are 1000 times lower might greatly improve an
otherwise uninteresting olive oil.