2) Extra Virginity

"Sublime and Scandalous" are tempting words, although in the service of food, they are fairly unsurprising. What is surprising about this book is the flavor, science, travel, politics and personal motivation flowing throughout. There are food scientists who do heat tests with olive oils to determine at what heat its properties no longer mean anything. There are tasters whose descriptions of a bare mouthful of the stuff inspire a kind of envy that any food has ever had so much identifiable flavor. There is a description of the Olive Oil of Old - the kind used to anoint ancient heroes and kings and travelers. Humans have recreated that substance - thousands of years and layers of myth later, we can know what Odysseus smelled like.

This is a very easy to read book whose ease is not in any kind of simplicity of language or idea, but connection of the story to the landscape to the science to the politics and the trees, oh, the trees.

Your mouth will be so happy for you after this.

This was, I think, the first non-fiction food book that I read at Left Bank Books. The food section in the downtown store was very close to the cash-wrap. It was bright and temptingly stuffed with trivia, science and history. The year after I read this, I wandered to the Festival of Nations where I found a lovely vendor selling olive oil that tasted like sharp and bark and weather and perfect. A small bottle of it came home with me, and some green olives which I ate with crusty bread and white wine on the side sitting on the fire escape of my third floor walk up on a perfectly blistering August afternoon.

I have brought home a jug of the stuff every summer since. I save up for it. I plan for it. I eschew attempts by the people staffing the booth to tell me Anything but the price. 

Also the letters of this book are truly beautiful. Like I read whole pages dancing from letter to letter. Book design: it matters.