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Archive for the ‘Stories from the Olive Grove’ Category

Aleandri and the Art of Pruning

Posted in Dolce recipes, Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Tiziano Aleandri in the Nudo Adopt an olive tree Aleandri grove

It is pruning time and here in rural Italy, pulses quicken at the thought of the annual Campionato Nazionale di Potatura dell’Olivo. The prize? The famous “forbici d’oro” – the golden secateurs. The final kicks off just after dawn in an olive grove on the north west coast of Sardinia. Regional champions from all over Italy come primed to prune 3 trees in 30 minutes, which are then judged on a series of arcane measures: the equilibration of the primary branches, the number and deposition of the secondary branches and the balance between vegetative growth and production.

Participants in the Italian national pruning competition

This year saw some particularly tough competition but we are very proud to report that this year’s Prince of Pruners was our very own Tiziano Aleandri of the Aleandri grove. Adoptive parents and Aleandri olive trees: hold your perfectly coiffed heads high – the judges have decreed yours the best hairdos in Italy (and that’s saying something).

Tiziano busy pruning trees in the competition

We’re reaching the end of the pruning season, with just 214 trees left to do in our Rosalio grove. Have a look at the animation below to see how Antonio prunes our trees; the key is to maximise the light getting to all the vegetative branches and lose any excess wood – which wastes the tree’s energy. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

The Nudo Italia guide: How to prune an olive tree

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Mamma knows best

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 3, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Gianluca's Mamma cooking her famous pasta.

Do you know what a scarf is?’ my friend Gianluca asked me. I gave him a quizzical look. ‘…A scarf is something I have to wear when my mother gets cold’ he joked. Gianluca is 37.

As we all know, the Italian mamma is queen of the cotton wool, mistress of the mollycoddle – and her kids reaching adulthood is no deterrent. On May 12th we get the chance to say thanks to our mothers (in North America) for all that effort – and how better to say it than with a Nudo gift box?

Mamma knows best - find her a special gift at Nudo-Italia.com

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Taste your olive oil like a pro

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2013 | 2 Comments »

Pouring olive oil in little tasting cups

Tasting oil is really very subjective. The most important thing is whether it gives you a warm glow inside, but of course there’s much more to find if you care to search it out. It’s a bit like going to an art gallery – by just looking, you know which paintings touch you or leave you cold, then you listen to the audio guide and get a whole different perspective. Well if you want to delve the oily depths, follow our suggestions below…

How to taste in five easy steps:

1.  Find a small cup, about the size of an espresso glass. The best thing is actually a disposable plastic espresso cup.

2.  Cup it in your hand, put your other hand over the top and swirl the oil around. You’re warming the oil to release the flavour. The volatile aromatic compounds will evaporate out of the liquid state.

3.  Stick your nose into the cup and inhale deeply, like someone about to make a great speech. What do you smell? Your nose can detect maybe 10,000 different smells, whilst the rather pathetic tongue can only taste 5 things so this stage should give forth some riches.

4.  Now slurp the oil – sip a bit of oil and a bit of air to help spread the taste. What’s there? Grass, artichoke, almond, tomato leaf, hay, straw, spice and melon are all terms officially recognised by the International Olive Oil Council.

5.  Swallow the oil and wait for the tingle – a gentle stinging in your throat; this is a sign of freshness and is caused by the antioxidants/polyphenols which make olive oil so healthy.

You’ll see that on the back of each of your tins, there are tasting notes from the olive farmer who made your oil. Do you agree with them? Or do you taste lemon when they taste almonds?

Olive oil tasting expert Barbara Alfei smelling some Marchigiani olive oil

What to do next?

Now you know the basics, why not invite some friends round for a tasting of your oil? Suggest it really casually, as if everyone has their own olive estate. Do a bling tasting, and compare your oil to a supermarket oil and maybe another good extra virgin olive oil. Observe the colour, the nose and taste the night away. And do let us know what you – and your friends – think.

Olives, still green, in Nudo Adopt an olive tree's Rosalio grove

A few important things to remember:

• Olive oil never improves with age. It’s not like wine.

• The Italians say you should have your ‘wine old and your olive oil young’.

• Colour has no bearing on taste or quality.

• The bitterness at the back is from the antioxidants and a good sign.

• Olives all start green and then turn to black or purple or dark brown.

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A kick of Sicilian chilis

Posted in Primo piatto recipes, Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

 

Nudo chili olive oil in Vegetarian Times magazine

Pizza night? Remember to add a good drizzle of Sicilian chili olive oil to give your pie a bit more bite.

We are honoured to have been featured recently in Vegetarian Times magazine’s gorgeous ‘pizza night’ shoot, complete with handy hints on the best tools to get the job done.  We’re definitely getting out our red olivey tin tonight – get yours from the Nudo Italia shop.

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How we prepare the Spring delivery

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2013 | 5 Comments »

Corrado Corradini in the oleificio in Macina, Italy.

It’s a time of great excitement here at Nudo. We’ve been going around all the Nudo groves, collecting this year’s harvest of delicious extra virgin olive oil . Some of the farmers find it quite a wrench to wave goodbye to their oil, but are cheer up by the knowledge that it is going to loving homes. Now it’s over to our bottling team. So now may we, just like in the break-it-down interlude to namecheck the players in the jazz band, introduce you to our team and who is up to what.

Olives are pressed in groups, and each batch is clearly marked so that the right Adoptive parents get their own tree's olive oil.

Corrado – il capo. At this time of year, having finished cleaning the olive press, which will now remain closed until October, Corrado and his team of two can concentrate on bottling and packing. All the available floor space is taken up by the ordered chaos of boxes, tins and labels. Corrado is the hands-on ringmaster (photo above).

Tirenzio makes sure the olive oil pressing process runs smoothly and that all olive oil gets to the right Adoptive parents.

Terenzio – master bottler. It is Terenzio’s job to carefully sort the oil, to make sure the right person gets the right oil, filter it and then fill each tin by hand, one at a time.

Sabrina the packing meistra.

Sabrina - the packing maestra. Once the oil is bottled it’s Sabrina’s job to make sure it goes in the correct box, with the correct address. Once all the boxes are packed they go on a pallet to the UK or on a long boat journey to the east coast of America.

Spring delivery packages packed to the ceiling.

If all goes according to plan, you should start receiving your Spring delivery at the beginning of April. Dodgy weather and over-keen custom officials have delayed our shipments in the past, but we have a good feeling about this one.

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Meet our new olive grove: Lavanda Blu

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Meet the Lavanda olive grove - now part of Nudo Adopt an olive tree

For centuries, food artisans across the Italian countryside have been quietly producing some of the finest food in the world. For them, it’s a way of life.  Every time we discover another such hidden gem, we rejoice. One such producer of olive oil (and organic lavender) is Lavanda Blu. They’ve just agreed to join our olive tree adoption program and a lucky few of you will have the privilege of becoming an Adoptive parent to some of the best cared-for olive trees in the whole of Italy.

Elizabetta and Hans of Lavanda Blu grove

This agriturismo and organic farm is run by Hans, Elizabetta and her daughter Francesca. Their home is a self-sufficient Eden with vegetable and herb gardens, fruit trees, the olive grove and fields of lavender. Hans originally hails from Amsterdam and Elizabetta is American but was raised in Rome.

They found their heavenly spot just to the north of Ascoli Piceno seven years ago, put their heart and soul into making it their own and haven’t looked back. Since those early years, they’ve turned the farm and its well-appointed agriturismo into a sustainable, self-sufficient operation where they grow most of their own food, generate their own heating and recycle water for the gardens.

Harvesting and sorting olives by hand at Lavanda Blu olive grove.

To celebrate their arrival, you can adopt one of their trees with a $10 discount for the next week (or whilst orphan trees are still available). Just use voucher code “lavanda10″ and adopt your tree today. You can also take a little photo tour of their farm on our Facebook page.

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Vini Vidi Vici

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Fresh tomatoes from the vine.

(I ate tomatoes fresh from the vine, I saw, I conquered)

In Testaccio in Rome, where we used to live, there is a fabulous produce market open six days a week. It has every fresh thing you could possibly dream of – swordfish to tenderloin, fresh cut minestra ingredients to succulent pineapple. Many stalls have a mix of fruit and veg, others specialise in meat or fish and one sells just one thing: tomatoes. On an average morning, I’d say that Signor Pomodoro lays out a selection of twenty or thirty varieties of tomato on his small, packed stall which glows as red as a toddler’s fire truck. First attempt at purchase can be intimidating. ‘What are you cooking?’ he will forcefully ask, happy to question your choice of tomato for a particular dish. He has, after all, the perfect tomato for every occasion.

The thing about tomatoes is that they do not lend themselves to large scale farming. The ‘hothouse tomatoes’ we end up with in our supermarkets are watery, uniform and usually quite tasteless, a shadow of the vivid tomato we remember from our childhoods. As with so many foods, the slow food movement, along with farmers markets and organic producers have been trying to improve our tomatoey lot.

And the wonderful thing about tomatoes, which arguably have been a more significant Italian cooking influence around the world than pasta or pizza, is that not only do they taste sublime, but they offer infinite variety to your cooking (deep and rich when roasted, sweet and zingy when fresh, complex and velvety in sauces). To top it all, they are bloomin’ brilliant for your health too.

So if you’re in Testaccio, or any good market, head for the tomato stall. Signor Pomodoro is someone who really knows his onions.

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Drunken Pecorino

Posted in Antipasti recipes, Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Regional Tuscan speciality Pecorino Ubriaco or ‘drunken pecorino’ cheese.

Cheese and wine. Never one to say no to a serving of either one of these typically Italian delicacies, it took a brief holiday to Tuscany one blazing hot August years ago to teach me the brilliantly simple pleasure of combining the two in its naked form. As is typical in Mediterranean countries, a glass of wine would usually be served with a little bite to eat. In Spain a great variety of tapas is on offer, in France the spread of fresh breads, cheese and preserves provides a feast on its own; and in Tuscany a single slice of hard cheese would suffice. As it turns out, a slice of local parmigiano reggiano or pecorino is single-handedly the perfect accompaniment to a glass of full-bodied Chianti. What heaven!

Much to my surprise then when I found that the Tuscans had taken this divine relationship a step further with regional speciality Pecorino Ubriaco or ‘drunken pecorino’ cheese. This very special version of the classic pecorino cheese is aged in grape must for six months, giving the rind its distinctive deep purple/burgundy colour and the cheese a delightful tangy flavour.

When you’re next at the local fromagerie, look out for this pecorino with its purple rind and enjoy a slice with some Chianti in front of the fireplace or on the porch come spring.

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Christmas family feast all’Italiana

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The Talocchi family of La Morla grove.

Two things matter in Italy’s festive season: food and family. If you’re filling your belly and groaning at grandpa’s questionable jokes, then all is right with the world. At La Morla grove (from where you can adopt an olive tree) the extended Talocchi family gather well in advance to prepare for the feast. Matriarch Simonetta is happy to spend the whole day making hundreds of perfectly crafted tortellini, ‘helped’ by grandson Tommasso. Claudio takes care of gathering in the fresh vegetables from the family orto (garden), as the guests arrive with luxurious pannetone to share.

Part of the freshly turned otra (garden) with the La Morla olive grove and Claudio's prized Lamborghini tractor in the background.

The story of La Morla

La Morla grove is one of the most popular in our Adopt an olive tree program. Its exceptionally good, award-winning olive oil is made by a family of passionate producers, led by Claudio who set up the family azienda twenty years ago. His original idea was simply to grow food for his young family and he has always believed in organic farming practices. The family planted large wheat fields to make flour for their bread and pasta, an olive grove for their oil and a large orto full of vegetables and fruit trees. A balsamic vinegar acetificio soon followed. Soon they were producing more than even their fast growing family could eat and started to sell to local restaurants and shops. They also built a stylish agriturismo where tree visitors can stay when they go and visit their adopted trees – and better still sample Simonetta’s divine cooking, all drizzled of course with oil from your very own olive tree.

We’ll soon be putting together a special La Morla trip offer – so do keep your eyes peeled.

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The TODAY SHOW loves Nudo Adopt an olive tree

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

TODAY Show's Natalie Morales talks to Elizabeth Mayhew about Nudo Adopt an olive tree

The TODAY SHOW ended off their Holiday Gift Guide feature today with Nudo Adopt an olive tree! Natalie Morales talked to Elizabeth Mayhew about her top picks. We especially enjoyed Natalie’s comment: “This is the best! I love this.” Thank you for picking us as part of your guide, Elizabeth.

Take a look, 5min in: WATCH VIDEO

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