If you’ve ever tasted a Meyer Lemon, you know that its flavor is markedly different from the Lisbon and Eureka lemons generally available in the produce aisle. Small, fragrant, with thin, surprisingly sweet skins, Meyer Lemons are very juicy and not very sour. Their flavor is floral and intensely aromatic, making them ideal for the remarkable Meyer Lemon Olive Oil produced each year by Albert and Kim Katz of Katz and Company.
This, as Albert likes to say, is an explosive oil. Made from Katz’s full-flavored, early-harvest olive oil, from the bright, lemony onset to pungent, long-lingering pepper at the finish, it’s easy to see why this oil has developed a dedicated following. Organic Meyer Lemon Olive Oil – a 2005 and 2006 gold medal winner at the prestigious L.A. County Fair Olive Oils of the World Competition – is not to be missed, and we are thrilled to share this year’s extremely limited offering with you. (Albert only makes small quantities Meyer lemon oil each year…and we always sell out!)
Most Meyer Lemon olive oil – and it’s showing up more and more these days – is made with late-harvest oil, meaning that the olives were left to ripen longer on the trees, resulting in a milder oil which takes a definite back seat to the perfumey lemons. But Albert did not envision an oil that was merely a vehicle for delivering lemon essence. Instead, at the expense of higher yield, Katz and Company uses full-flavored early-harvest oil, made from organic taggiasca and casaliva olives, creating an oil that is intensely flavorful in its own right.
Origins of Meyer Lemon Olive Oil, or,
Hey, You Got Chocolate in My Peanut Butter!
Did Italian olive oil makers discover lemon olive oil by happy accident while cleaning their stone mills with lemons? Maybe so - the aroma of lemons crushed with olives is intoxicating and hard to resist! Or was it the other way around – did they cleverly realize that making lemon olive oil at the end of the season was a great way to clean the millstones? Either way, many Italian olive oil mills end the season with a celebratory batch of lemon olive oil, and it’s hard to imagine a more perfect pairing.
After the olive harvest at the Katz family’s Rock Hill Ranch, fresh organic Meyer lemons are crushed right along with the olives. Albert is at the mill closely monitoring the pressing to ensure they blend the right ratio of lemons to olives – his own perfect “recipe”. The combination of lively lemons and bold olives is a match made in culinary heaven: an incomparable dipping and drizzling condiment that is wonderful on everything from crab and fresh artichokes to arugula and roasted halibut – perfectly delicious anywhere you would add a squeeze of lemon.
The Katz and Company Story
In 1978, Albert Katz was an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, teaching a course entitled “California Water: Its History, Politics and Culture,” and heading for a Master’s degree in City Planning. He had no inkling that 25 years later he’d be personally and intimately involved in water and land use issues . . . as a California olive grower and artisan food producer.
Albert began his career in the food business as many young people do: working in a restaurant. He had always enjoyed food and cooking, and his skills as a chef developed quickly. Kim calls him “the consummate restaurateur,” and given his temperament, his ability, and his talent, it’s no surprise that Albert opened his own restaurant – at the age of 25.
Albert and Kim have an enviable partnership that began as a college romance and is still going strong. Kim’s eye for style – she did the restaurant’s interior design - and her unwavering support while Albert “did it all” at their restaurant were critical to their early success. But after twelve years of working hellish hours, most of them on his feet, Kim persuaded Albert that they - and their two young daughters - needed a rest and a change of pace. They sold the restaurant and moved to the Napa Valley, thinking it would be a nice place to raise their family.
Kim and Albert took a year off to think about their options, including serious consideration of opening a new restaurant in Napa – which was still a pretty sleepy town in the early nineties. Eventually they found a “funky old market” building where they opened Katz and Company as a retail gourmet shop.
When they first opened the shop, Albert was already making wonderful preserves, and he had started to experiment with vinegar - it was only a matter of time before his imagination was captured by olive oil. And the time was right: Inspired by a trip to Italy, and surrounded by some of the finest agricultural land anywhere, Albert became one of the pioneers of the California olive oil industry.
Today, although the retail shop no longer operates, Kim and Albert head a thriving business producing exceptional olive oil, vinegar, preserves and honey, all carefully crafted and beautifully presented. Katz and Company preserves are still considered top-notch and they make very fine vinegar and honey - but Albert has clearly found his passion among the rows of olive trees he grows in the historic Suisun (pronounced “suh-SOON”) Valley. Katz and Company now farms more than 30 acres in the valley, producing award-winning olive oils year after year.
We visited Kim and Albert last fall at their offices in Napa. While pots of preserves simmered on the stove in the back kitchen, we munched on figs and goat cheese draped in a vinegar reduction while we admired their space, which clearly reflects Kim’s sense of design and style. While Albert tends to the olives, the lemon trees, the fermenting vinegars, the preserves and the honey, Kim is in charge of all things design. She developed all of the lovely Katz and Company gift boxes, designed the Katz Kitchen Line logo, and crafted the award-winning, distinctive packaging design for the Branches Honey and Preserves product lines.
Fresh, flavorful lemons and robust, assertive olive oil - what better way to ride out the dark winter and anticipate the promise of spring?
Tutti a tavola!
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by chefshop1
Filed under: Gourmet Food
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