Speiron

Lamba olive oil

You've been known to splurge on boutique fish sauce and $10 cocktails, but are you ready for the level of luxury and status a splash of super-fancy, ultra-special, mega-perfect Greek olive oil can confer? Seeing as just one teaspoon of Speiron's ritziest edition of its Lambda oil costs as much as a last-minute ticket to Vegas -- approximately $147 -- you're probably going to leave this salad drizzle to the real ballers.

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jgarbee

Olives + Garlic = Crush Oil

Blame it on one too many "truffle" fries, but we're skeptical of every mushroom, garlic and jalapeño-knows-what infused oil out there. Enter "crush flavored" olive oils, the jam "confitures" (oh, the food regulation semantic wonders) of the olive oil world.

Lodi-based Calivirgin has been producing great traditional olive oils long before there were conversations about the difference between cooking versus drizzling oils, much less olive oil "infusions." But with their latest crush oils, the produce -- here, garlic, jalapeños, citrus rind -- are tossed on the olive press *with* the olives, not infused in olive oil later. The flavor difference was remarkable -- yes, even for infusion skeptics like us.

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J. Garbee

Froodles On Ice

What exactly is a Froodle? Well, the next time you're at the farmers market, bemoaning the certainty that those colossal summer peaches will never arrive, take a moment to think about what (cold) scientists are eating at this very moment at McMurdo, the largest research station in Antarctica.

In the summer, they get fresh fruits and vegetables from New Zealand, but right now, it's a whole lot of frozen meats, canned fruits and vegetables, and potatoes. In other words, things that ship well to frozen continents, store well and can, preferably, be eaten frozen during those 30-degrees-below-zero lunch hours. Things like Froodles.

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flickr/Imgoblue

Just Add Mustard

"The World's Largest Hot Dog with Cuban Hot Sauce." It's not a slogan for the latest Guinness World Records attempt at temporary hot dog celebrity. It's the name of the hot dog stand that served as the inspiration for local artisan mustard producer Vivi's Original Sauce. Owner Vivian "Vivi" Poutakoglou, a self-described Sherman Oaks "elementary teacher by day and sauce entrepreneur by night," makes spicy-sweet mustard similar to the "Cuban hot sauce" her grandparents once made.

Poutakoglou's grandparents, former dairy farmers, traveled the carnival circuit around Ohio, Indiana and Michigan for nearly 50 years selling hot dogs topped with the spicy mustard sauce they made by the bucketful in their basement. [Yes, they were carnies, but grandmom, aka 92-year-old "Big Vivi," is not fond of that word, so we shall respectfully refrain from using it.]

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Flickr/comeundone

Jam, Toast or Confiture?

Bill Manning of High Desert Foods is the epitome of the organic apples-to-applesauce businessman. He's the sort of guy who cares about the broader societal and environmental impact of what he produces, yet he also appreciates that increasing the market value of a food product (heritage turkeys, bison, grass-fed beef and, sure, fruit-forward jams) is the quickest way to bring it back from near extinction.

Shortly after the Michigan-born ecologist bought a Durango, Colo., produce farm in 1999, he realized that simply selling his organic fruit the old-fashioned way wasn't going to make ends meet with the low profit margins. As he says on his website, "For small-scale farmers who are trying to compete in an economy that values food for how cheaply it can be produced, the principle of 'in diversity there is stability' translates into two strategies: first, having a diverse crop mix; and second, turning some portion of our harvest into 'shelf-stable' products."

For that shelf-stable side, he launched High Desert Foods with the help of Deborah Madison (yes, that Deborah Madison). Technically, Manning makes jams, only legally he can't call them jams because the jars are packed so full of fresh fruit. Ah, the red-tape breakfast table fun. Still thinking about starting an artisan food business? Manning (and Madison) both have plenty of advice.

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D. Gonzalez

Show No Fear: The Pantry

Most great dishes start in the same place: the pantry. Pantry staples like oils, spices and grains are essentials in most recipes. Yet far too often, our pantries turn into places where ingredients get lost rather than used.

Unlike those already forgotten New Year's resolutions, getting a pantry back into shape is not as daunting as it would seem. Keep it small, think different and don't be afraid to go to the experts for ideas. So turn the page for our top 5 items to get your pantry in order and where to get them.

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jgarbee

Granny Choe's Kimchi

Of the Big Questions in life, we've long wondered why a really good store-bought kimchi is so hard to find. Until, that is, we stumbled upon Granny Choe's Kimchi at our local market. It's the best store-bought kimchi we've ever tasted, even better, it happens to be made by a small local (Moorepark) company.

In part, that store-bought kimchi disappointment comes down to shelf-stable versus refrigerated pickle availability, as the later by its chilly nature keeps produce crunchier and fresher tasting. There's also the natural fermentation (or not) side of the equation, which makes the real flavor difference (not all refrigerated pickle products are naturally fermented).

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jgarbee

Salmon Roe And Bacon From Ukraina Deli

Just two blocks east of Huckleberry, where just-baked fruit crostatas and gorgeous chocolate croissants are displayed in all of their sunny Santa Monica glory, you will find Ukraina Deli. This nondescript sliver of a Russian/Ukrainian shop takes the opposite approach of so many popular food markets today by specializing in foodstuffs that get better as they age. Sausages, bacon slabs and bologna piled on top of one another in no apparent order; Russian rye bread as it should be (dense, dark and dry); whole smoked herring and other unidentified preserved fish.

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backwardsbeekeepers.com

Backyard Bee Supporters

It's great DYI canning and preserving is back in full force, but this year we've been more focused on the original preservers: honeybees. And so in honor of the humble bees and beekeepers who have served us so dutifully -- in countless cups of tea, in baked goods, drizzled on just about everything -- we offer our reflections on The Year in Honey.

Why honey? Much as we love the tart bite of just-made jam, we appreciate honey's maturity. And we're enamored by the thousands of bees, and thousands of hours, that go into making that jar. It's also been a roller-coaster year for honey. And besides, The Year in Honey sounds like something from Chinese astrology. In Zodiac terms, 2011 was technically the year of the rabbit.

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Beekeeper Brent Edelen

grampashoney.com

Brent Edelen, a sixth generation raw honey producer in Alamosa, Colorado, makes some of the best honeys we've ever tasted. Like grass-fed beef, you can literally taste the terroir in the honey that Edelen makes under the Grampa's Gourmet label.

In part, that's because right about now he's packing up his beloved bees and driving them to warmer climates. In New Mexico, they'll feast on tamarisk blossoms; in Texas, mesquite blossoms when he can find them.

For longer treks -- like this Spring, when he'll cart the bees to California -- Edelen flies his bees on a prop plane. Not a bad ride: You can follow Edelen's grungy motel room and mesquite blossom reflections as he treks across states with his bees on his blog.

There is more to the story, of course, as Edelen subscribes to the raw side of the honey equation, among other things. Turn the page.

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