Hi, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, my husband, uh, we have written, I don't know,

Air Fryer Bible, which can get you using your air fryer in every way imaginable.

In this episode of our Food and Cooking podcast, we wanna talk about tips for a healthier new year, or at least outrageous, insane

We wanna have our one minute cooking tip.

As always, Bruce has an interview with David Garci Aguirre master.

Olive Oil Miller, and we're gonna talk about what's making us happy in food this week.

So let's get started.

It's the new year and Mark and I have decided for a resolution not to make any resolutions

They're silly.

They are.

I'm way too old.

I, you don't really, you know what?

The only renovation that's gonna happen to me is a coffin, so,

oh well maybe a knee or a hip, I don't know.

Oh, maybe.

I don't know.

But you know, we had this thing when we'd lived back in New York and we could walk to our gym.

We never went the first two weeks in January.

No, that was a resolution we made.

Not to go the first two weeks cuz it was so crazy, crazy.

I needed it.

We belonged to Chelsea Pierce in New York City and it was only a block and a half from

When Chelsea still had, oh, prostitutes on the corners at night, and so I, I just made this whole

And by 15th they were all gone.

All gone.

Nice.

Okay, go back.

Now we can go back to the gym.

So here's the thing.

Every year I like to take a look at what the big media outlets say you should be doing to make your life better in the new year.

I ran across some absolutely outrageous advice, tips, and we wanna share some of those with you.

Yeah.

Here's what we wanna do.

We wanna talk about three or four tips, maybe four, right?

Yep.

In which we found that are just absolutely bogus and crazy.

We wanna talk about why they're bogus, and then we wanna talk a little bit about how you.

How to adjudicate what you read in the media.

So course a little bit about food media literacy.

Mm-hmm.

in this first segment.

So let's start off with the mm-hmm.

venerable New York Times that ran a feature about.

Coffee.

Yeah.

This was part of their how to like be healthier in the new year, and one of the things they said is,

Why?

They say, well, a study found that people who drank three and a half cups of coffee each morning, I love this.

We're 30% less likely to die.

To die to die from a whole list of things than people who don't drink that much coffee.

Okay.

I'm gonna say something before we even start into this, about drink three and a half cups of coffee

, I want to say that one of the ways that you can be media literate is anything that says, a study says, or scientists say.

Is bogus.

I can almost guarantee you it's bogus.

The, it doesn't mean that there aren't a collection of scientists who don't think certain things.

Like for example, the earth is round . Of course scientists say the earth is round, but in just random,

And what does that mean?

There are thousands of kinds of scientists, thousand.

Different scientists who studied different things.

Biochemists, physicists.

What does scientists mean?

And the thing is, I found this same advice given in a lot of media news albums just slash the New

No one said, so I had to do a lot of Googling and research to find the study and I finally found it.

It was a, okay, here it is.

Here it is.

It was a UK study and it followed 200,000 people, which is let's

just.

That's a great sample.

200,000 is a giant study.

Mm-hmm.

. Bruce: But let's also say it's just the uk, right?

So, okay, wait, well go on.

We'll get to that.

But what they were looking at was not how much coffee you drink in the morning.

They were looking at the difference between people who drank sugared coffee and black coffee.

So people who drank the black coffee were more likely to stay alive than the people who drank the heavily sugared coffee.

And when this got picked up by the US media and the Canadian media, both, we should say, the story suddenly became

But the study was about Brits who drank sugar coffee versus sweet coffee, and right there is a problem, right Brit?

It's because societal influence.

where you live, the environment around you, the rest of your diet, behavior, what kind of medical care you get in your That's right.

Community.

That's right.

All has a huge impact on whether you live or die.

Not whether you're drinking three cups of coffee in the morning.

That's right.

There was a study out not so long ago, and this isn't.

To mean to pick on anybody.

Oh, it was a couple years ago.

I remember this study very well, and it came out that basically said that, you know, breaded, processed

Okay.

That's all right.

But the part of the problem of the study is the study was done.

, almost a hundred percent in the Bay area of California, where physical fitness is a true fad.

Mm-hmm.

. And it didn't take into account things like the difference between the Bay area of California and West Virginia

Right.

Where there are plenty of super obese people.

Yeah.

Who.

In fact eat a lot of processed food.

It is a complete, it's so bogus because you've taken this, this kind of microcosm, the Bay

It's not true.

And in this case, you can't make the UK stand for all of the planet, right?

No, because, and he stretches.

Victoria tried to, queen Victoria tried to do that, but you can't do it.

Okay, well now you take the health and.

Dietary behaviors, the people living in the part of the uk, and I didn't even say which part.

My guess is that they picked one county somewhere.

Yeah.

Or, and now you London.

And now you say, let's compare that to the people that live in Bangladesh.

Yeah, exactly.

You can't make that comparison.

Or,

or you, you, you, you know, you use a sampling from, I don't know, bath England, but that doesn't take into account

No.

, it's, it's really suspect, even as a study of Brits.

But then to be extrapolated out and to drop the sugared part of the study and just say, well, coffee makes you live longer.

That is exactly what happens now.

One media outlet runs it New York Times, and then everybody picks it up.

Yeah, everybody runs with the story.

Oh, look at this.

This is so good.

Here's another one.

Here's, here's another thing, and we're gonna pick on the New York Times lot.

Here's another one.

The same.

They say, think about hydrating with foods.

Oh, instead of water.

Okay, I'm gonna hydrate with a steak.

Seriously?

, Bruce: I'm gonna hydrate with a steak.

No, but they go on to explain the kinds of foods that you can hydrate with.

Oh, okay.

So here, what's wrong with this scenario?

You come in from shoveling or gardening, you're sweaty, you're really thirsty,

And you're only talking about me because you hate gardening and shoveling.

So,

but I shovel too.

So we come in sweaty, we come in thirsty.

Do we turn on the tap and hydrate with a glass of water?

Yes.

Or do we eat a cucumber.

No, we're a cantaloupe.

No, because these are the foods they're suggesting you can hydrate with.

No, I mean, I'm an avid, avid gardener.

Bruce enjoys the gardens but does not garden.

And I have gardened, oh gosh, well over an acre of our property here in New England and.

You know, I mean, I, I work really hard at it spreading metric, tons of mulch, and I come inside and the first

I think next summer when you come in, the first thing I'm gonna do is hand you a cucumber.

No, I, you know what?

No, that is so dumb.

Of course, there's a lot of water in cucumber or watermelon or cantaloupe or honey do, or tomatoes,

but you know what?

Hydrates really well, water..

Yeah, the no . I don't want to come in and eat a tomato or go to the gym or go for a run and come in and eat a tomato.

That is absolutely insane.

I don't know.

I don't know what they're thinking except they're just thinking that, oh, we wanna say something

Vogue Magazine, here's another one.

They approached a bunch of celebrities.

This, I should tell you is another red flag.

Just like studies say or a study says, and scientists say, another big red flag for me is celebrities say because

Years ago when Bruce and I reversed together, he worked for an advertising firm and they did, uh, they specialized in.

Publishing advertising.

And there was a diet book that came out from Mary Lou Hener.

Oh, do you remember this?

God, yes.

I remember.

And Bruce had to work on the companion and she had this whole thing that you want to eat and I'm not making this up.

Mm-hmm.

So that your poop is floaters, not sinkers.

Yeah.

She said if floaters are a healthier body than than sinkers,

and I remember.

Being so outraged.

I think she's Mary Lou Hener.

Exactly.

I remember screaming at Bruce, how can you end good conscience even work on this advertising

But, um, , I was just so obsessed with it because I thought, who is Mary Lou Hener to give me diet advice or to give anybody now.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't eat more fiber, you should, because scientists say that you should, Mary Lou Henner says,

So in Vogue Magazine for example, these are some of their tips and one of them was,

Smoke more weed.

Thank you.

Seth Rogan, uh, g I mean, two wine.

That was it.

So they had this whole list.

Some of it was actually good.

One of the, I, I don't remember who they were, but one celebrity was like, get lots of sleep and one is drink lots of water.

And that's great.

I mean, I, I don't need a celebrity . To tell me that, but, Smoke more weed.

Uh, now I have to tell you this.

Okay.

And see, this is a perfect example.

When I was a freshman in college, yes, this is true, and, and we're talking here the late seventies.

So I was a freshman in college and this was all still pretty new stuff.

And there weren't gyms around the as there are now.

No, no, not at all.

As why that was the better it.

So I had a roommate who.

Oh gosh.

Who was just addicted to his bong and he would smoke that bong like crazy.

Oh, maybe insane.

It stank so bad.

Anyway, but he was the most unhealthy human I have ever seen.

He laid around in a bed and smoked weed and drank like crazy.

Yes.

At Baylor, a Baptist university.

Meanwhile, the guy next door to us.

Also smoked a lot of weed back in the early seventies, but he jogged back when jogging.

Chris was crazy, but he jogged 5, 6, 7, 8 miles a day.

So of course he was in great shape

and he might say, see, smoking weed kept me in shape.

See, once again, you have to look at the weed, every aspect of the people involved in this study.

Yeah.

Okay, so the Today Show offered it seven.

Good for you.

Transfer 2023 recently, and that included a plant.

Based ranch dressing.

Oh, I love this.

So you have to add this ranch dressing to your life to make you feel better in the world.

That is so ridiculous.

So ridiculous.

Just because it's plant-based ITT make it healthier.

Well, no, Dina Champion, who is a registered dietician or Ohio State says it does not necessarily a common misconception.

She says, is that a label that states plant-based or vegan automatically equals healthier.

But remember a vegan.

Is still a donut.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's the lesson for life of vegan donut is still a donut.

I think that that plant-based is another one of those things that is a red flag for me in media literacy doesn't

As a general rule.

Now listen, when I was up with my family over Christmas and with Bruce's family over Christmas,

And we went out for tongue taco lunches.

Yeah, there.

And there was no way, and I wasn't gonna be the idiot who was like, no, I can't go to the Taco Illa because you

I wasn't gonna be that person.

So it's not a hard and fast rule for.

I would prefer to eat meat or fish, and I count fish as part of meat no more than once a day.

And so, yes, of course.

Do I think plant-based eating is healthier?

Yes, I do.

But do I think plant-based gets thrown around as some kind of moniker for bad advice like plant.

Based ranch dressing is somehow healthy.

. No, I don't.

It's like Bruce and I talk about this all the time.

Vegan cheese.

It sounds great and it does sound great.

We went to a North Carolina restaurant in Asheville Plant and it's a vegan restaurant and they do their own vegan cheeses.

And the vegan cheeses there were delicious.

Mm-hmm.

, they even have a vegan.

Cheese aging cave for their vegan cheeses, but the vegan cheese that gots put on pizzas, let's say when you order the vegan cheese,

oh, it's not the kind of vegan cheese we have in that restaurant.

That stuff is made from nuts and yeast.

This stuff that you get when you order vegan cheese on a pizza is basically just congealed oil.

Uh, yeah.

Now I'm sure there are high-end pizzerias who are doing, you know, cashew cheese instead of ri ricotta.

I'm sure.

For a general rule.

Yeah, the general, the vegan cheese is, you might as well just eat Crisco.

It is pour some oil on your pizza.

Right.

It's the same thing as eating Crisco.

It's just an emulsified, hydrogenated, and stabilized oil product.

It's not necessarily healthier verse So how do you know who to trust?

Well, the North Dakota State University website.

Offers up this advice North Dakota

State.

Yeah.

Do you know that of all, we had had this discussion of all, all,

no, we haven't had it on the podcast.

We've had it with our nieces who

are going to college next year.

Year.

All public universities.

I believe North Dakota State has the highest admission to.

Ivy League business.

Graduate programs of any state college, state run college.

If you're going to college, go there.

. Okay, so North Dakota, Dakota State.

So here's three things from their huge list.

Are the recommendations made that you read based on a single study?

Because one study may not prove anything.

It might, but it probably doesn't.

It takes several studies where evidence accumulates it's compared, and bit by bit the truth is uncovered.

Okay, and does the advice cast doubt on reputable scientific organizations do.

Don't be skeptical or fearful just by implication and listen.

There's a lot of ways that you cast doubt that actually begin as doubt and then reform scientific theory when thinks of string

But however, if it's sensationalized mm-hmm.

as the doubt, like, oh, we've always thought that blank, but now we know bla, we always thought that oranges

If you hear such things.

Just be very skeptical of them because one voice screaming aloud doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

Sometimes the voice in the wilderness is right, but oftentimes the guy standing on the corner

he's usually insane.

Right.

And does the advice include recommendations drawn from studies?

That ignore the differences between groups and individuals.

That's, this is, that's like the thing about the coffee study in just the uk.

That's just the UK and it's not the rest of the world.

Animals and people are different.

So was the study about giraffes and now they're telling you how to treat your dogs and cats, men and women are different.

Was the study all about women and giving men advice from it?

Yeah.

Age, economics, race, many other factors are really important when you look at the results of . Studies.

And you should know that there's a lot of research these days that, uh, for economic reasons,

For example, they'll go to the Azores or they'll go to the Canary Islands.

Or they'll go to, um, I don't know, they'll go to Dubai and only, uh, do this study amongst East Indian workers in Dubai that there's

But what you're dealing with then is an incredibly non diversified population.

That's a wonderful study.

And the results should be taken seriously by the East Indian workers in Dubai.

Correct.

It is not a worldwide.

No, because the cow I eat, or the beans I eat or the carrots I eat or the cabbage I eat has different chemical signatures,

Everything about it changes across low cow.

Mm-hmm.

, this even goes when comparing, say the food groups of New England and the dietary health of New

Yeah.

And I'm not casting as versions in Oklahoma.

There are things about Oklahoma that would make New England look sad, and there are things about

So you have to take into account the actual population that was studied.

Okay, so enough about.

All the problems with the outrageous food tips that come out in the new year.

We hope you'll subscribe to this podcast.

We hope you'll rate it.

It'll be really great if you could drop down on the Apple list.

If you could look up at the top of the Spotify page, you'll see ways to rate this podcast.

I'm dropping a comment in Google or Apple is even better, even something as Emily as great podcast.

Thank you so much for doing that.

Up next segment two, our one minute cooking tip.

Buy a pastry brush, keep it with your everyday tools based meat with it, instead of using a baster.

If your recipe has you breading chicken breasts or cutlets and you have, you have to dip them in flour

Use the pastry brush and brush them with flour, and then you could save a whole dirty bowl.

It's true.

Buy your pastry brush.

It's true.

Pastry brushes are amazing tools in the kitchen.

Mm-hmm.

And there are also tools, uh, once you've finished for, uh, wiping crap off cutting boards, um, you know, I mean,

Up next on our podcast, Bruce's interview with, David Garcia Aguire, the Master Olive Miller at cor.

Olive company in California.

Today, I'm talking with Master Olive Miller, David Garcia Aguire from Corto Olive Company.

David is an olive oil guru who's dedicated to the advancement of high quality olive oil production, research and education.

Dave is gonna talk with me about what it takes to make great olive oil and what we need to look for when we buy some.

Hey, David.

Hello, Bruce.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, my pleasure.

Hey, let's just start right up the top.

What makes olive oil different from all the other oils we eat?

Anytime I have these kinds of conversations, this is how I start these conversations for a very simple reason.

One of the most unfortunate things that happened to olive oil is that it got lumped into the edible oil category.

I say that because all edible oil.

Olive oil aside, but the rest of the edible oils, all of 'em, I don't care what it is, uh, they all are

These oils from the very beginning are destined to become odorless, colorless fats, and in order

Uh, you're bleached, they're deodorized and the refining bleaching, the deodorizing process

So you're basically left with an odorless, colorless fat olive oil at its best is the exact opposite of that.

The best way to think about olive oil, and this is a kind of a, a really important thing, is we have to forget everything we

And the best way to think about it is not like an edible oil or a fat, but more like a.

Because essentially olive oil is fresh pressed juice.

It, it's not refined, it's not bleached, it's not, deodorized isn't a, it's an expression

Like any juice, the olive oil is only ever gonna be as good as the fruit that it came from.

Is that why not all olive oils are created equal?

I'd say there's two main reasons why olive oils are not created equal.

Number one, we have a tasting that we use at Cordo, which, uh, we have divided into two flights as two parts of an equation.

You have to have both of these parts of this equation in order to have a high quality product, and the

The second part of the equation is the oil itself has to be fresh as well.

So if you could start off with a beautiful olive oil and if it's not taken care of, right, it's going to

So, you know, what we typically see on the shelf is something of either of those where the, it's either made from poor

How do I know when I go to buy a bottle of olive oil in the supermarket that is not rancid?

I mean, honestly, like this is, this is the question I get asked the most is how.

, you know, I'm in the supermarket how, and you're looking at a hundred bottles on the shelf.

Right?

Because it's a crazy category where it's just, you know, there's overwhelming amount of bottles.

How do I know what's good and what's not?

You know, from my point of view, you know, my, my job is a master Miller is not just making high quality oil.

It's making sure that my customers get high quality oil.

Hmm.

I don't know that I could do that in retail at through supermarket.

So honestly my answer would be don't buy it at the supermarket.

get it from the maker if you can exactly get it directly from the maker.

Um, someone, you trust someone or there's a face behind the product.

You know, we joke here that olive oil is the ingredient that farm to table forgot.

Hmm.

All these ingredients have gone through this rebirth of getting to know where it came from and how it's made, and

And, uh, you know, unfortunately olive oil is just it.

Nobody knows where it came from or who made it.

Take me through the process of how you make.

From the tree to the bottle at Corto,

I'll reinforce this message.

We have to remember that olives are a fruit, and like any fruit, there's a very short window.

When that fruit, it's at its peak.

I, I like to use the analogy of an orange tree in your backyard.

And you know that orange early on it was a blossom, and then it became a fruit, and that fruit grew

That perfect moment, and that's usually sometime in December.

And that orange is sweet.

It's beautiful, it's gorgeous.

If you go out to your backyard and you juice that orange, it's gonna taste like really high quality, fresh.

It's gonna be like that orange.

Now, let's say on your way back there, you got distracted by something and you forgot about your orange.

Say a dog runs through your, your screen door or something and you forget about that orange.

And so December turns into January, turns into February, turns into March.

, what happens to that orange on the tree?

It continues to ripe into the point where it becomes over ripe, and then eventually it's, you know, it starts to ferment.

It starts producing alcohols, and eventually it falls off the tree.

Now, the important thing to understand is that most of the world's, and I'll put it in quotations, quote unquote, extra virgin

They've gone through a long, they, they've missed that pinnacle moment that, that perfect moment to harvest.

It's sat on the tree until they begin to ferment.

They start producing alcohols which produce defective oils, and that's probably about 70 to 80% of the oil that's made worldwide.

. So that's the first part of this is it has, the fruit itself has to be harvested within that really short window

Yeah.

And then the second part of all of this is once you have that oil, all of your energy, let's talk, we'll talk about the good oil.

Once you make that beautiful olive oil, all of your energy has to change and it you have to shift to protecting

From storage to the type of package you choose to how you distribute the product to where you sell.

It's a totally different mindset.

And so at Cordo, in a nutshell, we've embodied that philosophy in the way we make olive oil.

Talk about that process and how you put that philosophy into action.

Sure.

So, uh, about 20 years ago, a new planting method was developed and this planting method through the entire industry upside.

because up until that point, everything was hand harvested.

And as you can imagine, the volume of extra quote unquote extraversion olive oil consumed

Right?

So this technological advancement, you know, 20, 25 years ago, really flipped the industry upside down.

Cause it's the first time we've been able to produce high quality olive oil is scale.

So we call it vineyard styled high density, super high density, but basically it's a mechanized

So we do.

That's what we do.

So we went all in.

So our harvesters go out.

They're harvesting 24 7 in a 40 day period.

So that window's very short, and the moment the fruit comes off the tree, they're rushed here to the mill.

A mill is basically a giant juice plant.

As I said, , it's it.

My job, I don't like to tell this to too many people.

My job is a master.

It's actually pretty easy.

As long as I start with good fruit, I can make a good oil.

So the olives come in, uh, in trailers, they get unloaded.

We remove anything that's not high quality fruit, so that could be like leaves or sticks or maybe some damaged

We have equipment that removes all of that.

So all we're left with are pristine olive.

Okay.

Those olives then get crushed through what we call a hammer mill or a blade crusher.

They're different kinds, but they essentially get crushed.

And this is, this is why I love being a master Miller, is this moment.

So the oil that's in the olives is actually distributed through the flesh of the olive and teeny tiny microscopic drop.

and this oil at this point, it doesn't have color.

There's no aroma, there's no antioxidants, there's none of these health benefits, there's no flavor, there's nothing.

It's just oil.

All of that beautiful stuff that we end up with in a great bottle, all of that happens in the milling process.

And that's, that for me is, uh, that's what gets me going.

So how does that happen?

Yeah.

So the moment those olives are crush, Then the, the oil is exposed to the rest of the olive of the water, the, uh, you

And that's when this crazy biochemistry starts happening that produces these beautiful aromatic compounds.

And, and these really healthy polyphenols move into the oil and these wonderful flavors and everything happened.

And that happens in about a 20 to 25 minute period, which we call mal.

So we go crushing.

Then it's mal relaxation.

And mal relaxation is really just a slow agitation of this paste that we have now in a very controlled environment.

So we don't want oxygen in there.

We don't, it can't be hot, so we do it as cold as we possibly can because that's how we retain all of those flavors and nutrients.

Once the oil has all the flavor we want, and once we're confident that it's good and ready to separate.

Then what we use now is we use centrifuges and then that separates all of the heavy things, so the water and

So what you're left with is you're left with fresh oil and you're left with the palm, which is the the paste.

Once the oil's extracted, we call it PMUs.

That oil then goes to one more centrifuge, a finisher polisher, and that's it.

At that moment, you have your fresh.

High quality olive

oil.

How do you then package it and transport it to retain its peak freshness?

So the moment the oil's out of the olive, It goes into our sellers.

And our sellers we've determined are about the the best environment you can have to slow down oxidation.

You can't stop oxidation.

That's why the human body ages, right.

We haven't figured out how to stop it yet, but we can definitely slow it down by doing things like.

Keeping the oil cool, right.

Keeping light, heat, and air away.

So in our sellers we have stainless steel casks.

Uh, they're kept under nitrogen to keep the oils kept under nitrogen to keep all the, the oxygen out.

Mm-hmm.

and it's all climate controlled.

So that's great.

It's in our cell and it's protected, but what happens next?

Right?

What about the real world?

So the decisions, you know, what we've decided to do is we only package enough to fill the orders that are coming in.

And that way the oil spends the least amount of time in the real world, but the, it's going into the real world, right?

Yeah.

So that's when the packaging choice becomes critical.

What package is out there that protects it from light, heat, and air.

And after extensive testing, we found that the best package to protect olive oil from light, heat,

It's basically a bag in box.

Hmm.

And if you think about it, the cardboard blocks the.

The cardboard acts as an insulator, and then the bag itself protects the oil from oxygen.

Not just until you open it, but the entire time you use it.

Right?

And so that's how we're able to guarantee fresh oil through the last drop.

David, you threw out the words extra virgin earlier.

So let me ask you, are those terms extra virgin and virgin still meaningful in the US olive oil market?

I describe it like.

extra Virgin is like getting a D in school because there are two components to an oil being extra virgin.

Number one, it has to go through a chemical analysis.

And number two, it has to go through a sensory analysis.

So a trained sensory panel tastes oils blind, but all they are looking for is any defect.

So in order to be extra virgin, by the, by definition, the definition is the oil must have zero defects.

Okay?

And so why do I say that's like a D in school?

Well, that doesn't mean you did anything well, right?

All that means that there's nothing wrong with it.

and we deal with a lot of chefs and I always, I always joke with the chefs when we were talking about this and

And you tell your fish monger, you say, you know what?

Gimme some fish that's got nothing wrong with it, and he goes into the back and grabs some fish that's been there for three days.

It's not quite rancid yet.

Right.

So, you know, and he brings you that fish.

It's just, it doesn't make sense.

And that's how we think about olive oil for some reason.

So you are not labeling your oils as extra virgin?

So we do.

So California has its own extra virgin standard and it's the strictest standard in the.

And that's great.

The pro, so it's like, it's like a C minus . The problem with that is that all of the testing happens at the time of production.

Hmm.

. And as we know, olive oil, you can't stop oxidation.

Right?

So that has very little bearing with what's actually on the shelf.

So, you know, the reality is if we could take the words extra virgin, if we could, if we could just

I mean, extra virgin has become a commodity at this point.

Right.

If we could just get rid of that and start new with some new language, I would be all over it.

Let's talk about cooking with oil.

So now we, you've made this beautiful oil, you've packaged it in a way that will keep it as fresh as can be for as long as possible.

I get it home.

Should I saute with it?

Will it lose its flavor?

Nutrition over high heat?

So the answer is a very simple, fresh, high quality olive oil is the most stable cooking oil there.

and there's a very simple reason for that.

We've talked about what makes olive oil different from all the other oils, right?

It's mm-hmm.

. It's essentially, it's fresh pressed juice, so it retains all of the flavors.

It retains the aromas, and it retains all of the antioxidants from the fruit itself when the oil is fresh.

and high quality than the oil itself because of these antioxidants won't break down in a pan like refined oils do.

Now we all get tripped up on this smoke point deal, so I'll, I'll address that.

Smoke point is kind of ridiculous because you can't just say that an oil has a smoke point because it depends on the batch of oil.

It depends on how fresh it is.

I mean, smoke, like any oil, is gonna have huge ranges of smoke point.

Mm-hmm.

and olive oil is no.

So we were talking earlier about our orange, right?

That really beautiful orange.

Mm-hmm.

. So the, and so start with a premium olive.

If you extract the oil from a premium olive, it's gonna have an extremely high smoke point.

Now as that olive hangs on the tree in ferments, right, it's rotting, it's becoming over ripe.

It starts to ferment.

The actual fats are breaking down in that olive.

So when you extract the oil, if you juice that rotten orange, right, that oil is going to have a much lower smoke point.

and because most of the oil in the United States especially is from over ripe olives, most of the extra quote unquote

That doesn't mean it has to.

That just means that it's very low quality.

Well, the quality of the fruit determines the quality of the oil.

Exactly.

It determines the qual.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Smoke point.

And then we shouldn't be worried about sauteing over high heat.

Not only should you not be worried about it, you should be excited that not only does it have a

which make it a really healthy and stable cooking oil.

David, as a cookbook author, I'm always looking for new, exciting ways to use great tasting products.

So I'm gonna ask you, what are your favorite ways to use olive oil?

Aside from salads or simply using it to dip bread into, let's talk about.

Baking, for example, people always shy from using olive oil in baking because it has a strong quote unquote

because the, the olive oil in baked goods in, in, in, in, as a, as an ingredient in things has such

Hmm.

And, and so, like, for example, uh, in California we used to have a really big table olive industry and the variety,

And Osco this giant olive, it is a pain in the butt to get the oil out.

However, when you do get the oil out, it is extremely unique.

It, it really smells like melons, like someone's just chopping up melons, canop, uh, Honey doo, and it's

And when it's in baked goods, it's remarkable.

It's just, it adds a whole layer of depth to the flavor that you'll never, ever get with any other kinds of fats.

At Corto, do you sell different varietals of oils?

So we use different varietals in our blend.

So we, we deal mostly with, with chefs into food service.

So really high-end restaurants across the country.

And we have one product we call truly, which is a blend of aina and arana, which are two Spanish varietals.

Mm-hmm.

and uh, koi, which is a Greek varietal.

And we blend that for a consistent product for chefs.

Mm-hmm.

. And when I talk to people now, it's like I can take my cordo hat off.

Right.

And I'll tell you, once you open the door to the world of.

High quality olive oil.

I encourage people to go try other oils, find other varieties.

You look at oils from other countries, uh, different terroirs that you just have to understand that it has

So aside from baking, if you want to have a really exciting, uh, use for the oil, something that'll

Another one, another great pairing is olive oil and chocolate.

Whether it's just a truffle sitting in olive oil with little salt,

chocolate, and olives sound like a fantastic combination.

That's one of the parts about my job that excites me the most is like, once people start under, like, once you think about

That we can do with, with fresh, high quality olive that we're not currently doing because we

So we need to just be getting our hands on fresher olive oil made from better fruit, like what you're making.

A Corto Olive Company Master Olive Miller, David Garcia Aguire.

Thank you so much for spending some time talking about all things.

Olive oil and what you're doing at the Corto Olive Company.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Bruce, thank you so much.

I,

I, I have to tell you a story.

Well, Bruce knows the story, but I'm gonna tell you a story.

When I was in grad school in Madison, Wisconsin, I, this is the mid eighties and olive oil is

Of course, it's a thing in Italy.

Oh my God.

It's been a thing in Italy for hundreds of years.

Greece

and other places, but anything.

And so I found a recipe in Bon Appetit.

This has to be like 1986 in Bon Appetit for something, and it called for olive oil, and I had never actually a good southern boy.

This is 86.

I had never heard of olive oil, so we went to the supermarket to buy some.

They had none at the supermarket in Madison.

They sent me to the drugstore, and olive oil was sold as a.

Ointment called Sweet oil, and I am sure it was not food safe olive oil, but I bought this little bottle

I dunno.

I'm surprised it wasn't sold as a laxative.

Well, it could have been for all I know.

I don't know.

They ta, they said, go to the drugstore.

That's the only place they have these things.

And I was like, Okay, and I bought it Sweet Oil.

Isn't that funny?

Well, my big takeaway from that conversation though is how oil is packaged.

I am going to be looking for the bag in the box now because that is really clearly, according to David.

The only way to make sure your oil stays.

Unoxidized until you finish it up.

And so start looking in our pantry mark for the olive oil, the bag in the box with the spigot.

And we . That's how we're doing olive oil from now on.

Yeah, the box also keeps the, uh, the light away from it, right?

It does.

It's a brilliant, it's a brilliant thing.

It is.

Okay, so we wanna tell you a little bit of news information before we go onto the last segment of the podcast.

For our knitting listeners out there, many of you know that I am also a knitter.

I've written some knitting books and many of my patterns, in fact, almost all the patterns I have knitted and created are

I also have opened an Etsy shop where you can find all my patterns and you can go to Etsy shop and it's

I couldn't believe that name was available.

See nice knitting patterns.

Okay, so you can go to bruce weinstein.net or nice knitting patterns.

So take a look at my knitting patterns.

All right, our last segment as is traditional.

What's making us happy in food this week?

You get to start.

I love chocolate covered orange peel.

We bought a ton of it when we were in Toronto.

We did over Thanksgiving and No, no, we didn't.

I did, and I thought we had finished it all and I found a little bag of them hidden away in one

So I've been enjoying them.

We were in Toronto and Bruce was craving chocolate, and I have to tell you that we

Afternoon, we would go, we had this Airbnb on the 40th floor of this building with this gorgeous view of Toronto.

And so every day we'd go out and we'd walk miles and miles and miles around Toronto.

I mean, it was crazy how much we walked and exploring the city and having lunch and going various

And then we'd come home about four in the afternoon, and dinner would be seven or eight at night.

And for the intervening time, , we watch Rings of Power on the Lord of the Rings thing on H B O, right?

Or something.

Mm-hmm.

. So anyway, we, or.

Prime.

I don't know where it is.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Bruce, in the middle of watching all the strings of power was like, I want chocolate.

So we paused it and he went out and went across the streets to some chocolate place and bought candy covered orange peel.

It was a Swiss shop.

I don't remember which one boat it was one of those Swiss chocolate companies and oh my goodness,

Yeah, it is a good thing.

Okay, here is.

Uh, well, what's making me happy?

The food is this week and it is lunch out in the middle of the week.

. I love this idea of going out to lunch in the middle of the week.

We both work at home, of course, because of our career.

We are around a lot.

We're, we're recording podcasts, we're writing books, and I'm teaching a lot of literary

Uh, we go out for lunch midday, and I have to say it is one of the nicest treats there can possibly be if

But you know what?

Every once in a while I would take myself.

Out for lunch and sit at the bar or sit at a table by myself.

It's fine.

It's a lovely thing.

It's a lovely thing.

I go with Bruce, we sit, we have lunch out.

It's just, it's just, I dunno whether there's something about lunch out.

It's treating yourself.

That is a good self-care wellness.

Tip for the new year is once a week take.

If you can do it once a week, take yourself out for lunch.

Yeah.

And it doesn't even have to be once a week.

It can be once every other week.

And it doesn't have to be anything Makes fancy.

I don't mean take yourself out to a five star restaurant.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Yesterday we went out and I literally had a Thai salad at a place.

Oh, I don't know.

About an hour away from us in New England.

It was just lovely.

I sat there and had my Thai salad and my iced tea and we talked and it was, it was like this kind of mini vacation.

It was nice in the middle of my week and it was really, really nice.

The only thing that would've made it a real vacation is if we'd had a drink at lunch.

Oh, I, yeah.

No, I can't do that anymore.

, we were talking about that last night cuz we, we were watching White Lotus on HBO O and they say drink, they

And I said to Bruce, I remember when I could go out and split a bottle of wine with Bruced for lunch at, you know, we'd be on

And I said to him, I just can't anymore.

I can't.

Mm-hmm.

In fact, when I went out and had my Thai salad yesterday, I thought about having a beer and then I

You gotta call him work, not sleep.

Right.

I'm, I gotta come home and I gotta get ready for this class.

I'm teaching on Gerard Stein, Marcel Prust, and.

Freud, I gotta get ready for that and I'll just be wrecked and not be able to do that.

A lot of people would need a beer to do that.

. Mark: No, I need all my brain cells going, uh, together.

Okay, so that's our podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast.

We are certainly grateful that you are on this journey with us.

Thank you so much for being there.

We.

Love doing this and talking about, I don't know what's hip and happening in food, but also we love the

and we hope you will subscribe.

You leave a comment and please go check out my knitting patterns@bruceweinstein.net and at nice