Extra Virgin

Extra virgin olive oil is the most important ingredient in my kitchen. I always buy the very best, insuring that even a dish as simple as toasted bread and olive oil will be a tasty bite.  Always buy extra virgin pressed in the most recent November. Right now I'm using my 2009 oil at the table, as a condiment, trying to finish up the last few bottles of 2008 extra virgin (still delicious but without the fresh, lively zip of the new oil) for cooking and baking. Castello di Ama, Tenuta di Capezzana, and Grattamacco are some of my favorite Tuscan extra virgins. And Fattoria il Paradiso, on Lake Garda, mades wonderful oil, including a series of obsessive but delicious single-cultivar oils. Of course I approve of culinary obsession. In Sicily I'm crazy about Tenuta La Rocchetta and Azienda Occhipinti, both using Sicilian cultivars.