It’s been a busy 10 days on the farm. We pruned the early flowers and fruit off our new strawberry plants and weeded all around then. We cut the flowers back in order for the plants to have warmer weather when they produce the next round of flowers. This will lead to flavorful early summer strawberries. Compost was delivered, grass is getting mowed, soil is getting tilled, and the greenhouse is brimming with happy chile starts (check out the photo of Gideon below to see pile of compost, full pond, and tilled fields!).
The sun is out and we’re really enjoying this change in weather.
And our 2024 olive oil is ready to ship! It is very limited and I’m positive it will sell out today. Grab a bottle and drizzle it on spring vegetables!
About the 2024 Olive Oil
The 2024 batch of olive oil was again made with a mix of olives from the 500 olive trees on my family’s property. The olives were harvested on November 5, 2024 and milled the same day in Hopland, CA. It was bottled March 31, 2025. Olive trees don’t reach maturity until they are 100 years old (ours are somewhere around 30 years old I think) and as immature trees, they have on and off years of production. As a result, 2023 was our biggest harvest of olives ever and 2024 ended up being one of the smallest.
In total, we produced a whopping 24 gallons of olive oil (lol) and have 84 bottles for sale (also lol). We will sell all of this today.
Most importantly, I think it is some of the best olive oil that has been made with our olives to date! It is grassy and pungent and has the right balance to be a regular cooking oil or be used as a flavorful finishing oil.
Some bottles we ship out will be in our original printed olive oil bottles and some will have a colorful sticker label. We wanted to use up what we had left of the printed glass but didn’t want to invest in a whole new pallet of glass right now so opted for stickers on the rest! Just know that it's the same olive oil from November 2024 inside both!
If you miss out on the olive oil and want a recommendation of where else you can purchase great olive oil, reach out and we will share our favorites.
What We're Cooking
- Mushroom Quesabirria Tacos from NYT Cooking (Gift recipe link - you don't need a subscription to access it!): This recipe is SO GOOD! We've made it twice in 10 days and loved it both times. We used our whole dried ancho and whole dried guajillo chiles and then used about 1.5 Tablespoons of our Cali Birria Blend in place of all the other spices the recipe calls for. It's a really great recipe I can't recommend more!
- Also from NYT Cooking, I brought this Jalapeño Corn Dip to a get together a few weeks ago and it was a hit. I used half frozen corn and half Tan Tepary Beans (because I had them cooked already!) as well as Smoky Piment d'Ville in place of chili powder.
- Our Korean Bulgogi Meatball Rice Bowls are such a sleeper hit. I used to think meatballs were pretty meh (and generally way too dry and boring) but these simple meatballs are incredibly flavorful and super moist. They also come together in under an hour and don’t require browning on the stove. It’s a really perfect weeknight dinner. If you haven't tried our gochugaru chile powder, now is the tim
