That is Extremely Suggest, a column devoted to what folks within the meals business are consuming, consuming, and shopping for proper now. Right here, Kyle Beechey writes about one of the best avocado oil she’s ever had.
As a one time California resident and frequent customer to the Golden State, the Hollywood farmer’s market is my first cease from the airport. I’ve lived in New York for years now and don’t miss a lot about my LA life, however I’ll by no means cease speaking about California’s dream produce. Candy pineapple tomatoes in the summertime, elephant coronary heart plums within the fall, and the world’s greatest avocados all yr lengthy. The Rancho Santa Cecilia stand usually has 8 to 10 completely different varieties, together with Hass, Bacon, and Eureka, a latest favourite with edible pores and skin. Once I’m again dwelling in New York, I lengthy for these vibrant inexperienced infants, and all of that longing led me to order West-Bourne’s additional virgin avocado oil.
In the course of final yr’s dreary winter, I opened the field and couldn’t imagine the colour within the bottle, an iridescent inexperienced. Certain, I would had avocado oil earlier than—a model I’d picked up from the grocery store, a regular gentle yellow oil that tasted as impartial because it appeared. This good-looking bottle, alternatively, was particular. I began out by tasting it with a spoon. It was punchy, grassy, and wealthy. I noticed infinite prospects: for sautéing greens, coating roasted roots, and ending crisp chicory salads. Though the natural avocados are grown in Mexico, their lush taste jogs my memory of my sunniest days in California, and the oil brightens up all of my programs. I’ve swapped it in as my dipping oil for focaccia, I substitute it for olive oil when baking, and I drizzle it on desserts. Crossing all culinary frontiers, candy/savory, uncooked/cooked, this superb inexperienced workhorse is a welcome addition to my kitchen.
West-Bourne is fairly new to the provisions sport. The model first began as a healthy-cool, California-inspired restaurant in Manhattan’s Soho, owned by chef Camilla Marcus. With rising rents and a pandemic on her palms, Marcus needed to shut her doorways in 2020, however she efficiently pivoted to a provisions model. With it, you’ll be able to nonetheless get a style of her imaginative and prescient within the type of pistachio dukkah, togarashi crunch snack combine, and my favourite inexperienced gold oil. West-Bourne’s natural avocados are sourced in Mexico yearly and pressed proper subsequent to the orchard to protect most freshness, therefore the $45 price ticket.
After a yr full of unhappy East Coast avocados, the kind with bruised brown flesh that pulls proper off the pit, West-Bourne’s oil permits me to have a bit little bit of that recent Hollywood Farmers market bounty in New York. Life does not at all times grant you ripe avocados, however now I care rather less.
