It’s Time to Make the Oil

It’s olive oil making time! This gorgeous extra virgin olive oil pictured is from the Nocellara del Belice variety of olives, grown in Castelvetrano, Sicily. What you see here is oil being pressed for Olio Centonze, which is sold in the United States by Gelsomino Imports, LLC. This photo was taken earlier this week by…

Cast the nets!

The olive harvest is on! What we learned on our tour is that there are two phases of the olive harvest: the first round is for olives that are to be eaten; the second round, which takes place generally in late October/early November (depends on the climate-location of the trees), is for producing oil.

Ancient Oil Carafe

This vessel is called a lekythos. I photographed it in the civic museum of Castelvetrano, which houses some of the artifacts unearthed from the nearby archaeological site of Selinunte. Lekythoi (plural of lekythos) were used by ancient Greeks to store oil, most often, olive oil. It’s appropriate to see this beautiful one from the beginning…

Sicily’s Liquid Gold

Olive trees and olive oil where brought to Sicily by the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the centuries before the Common Era. Today, the island region is one of Italy’s most prolific producers of this liquid gold that has many health benefits and uses–from cooking to soap to moisturizer. Feudotto, imported in the US by…