Terrifically Tasty Luretík Olive Oil at the Deli
A great new oil from the Central Coast of California
Here’s a classic—and tasty—case where a strongly held point of view, a vivid vision of the future, and a willingness to put in a whole lot of hard work have made for a wonderful new olive oil. Luretík founder Elise Magistro gave up her career as a writer and professor of Italian language and literature at Scripps College to move to Central California and launch a remarkable small farm to craft world-class olive oil.
The passion for great food that’s at the core of Magistro’s point of view is not new. In a piece written for Stanford Magazine nearly 20 years ago, she shared:
As the child of a Sicilian father and French Basque mother, my fondest memories are tied to the kitchen of my childhood. Nothing terribly unusual about that. To one degree or another we are all transported by food. Rossini is said to have had perfect recollection of the risotto served at almost any party in his honor, but no recall of the host’s face. Proust may have been the best to write about the visceral connection between a taste and things past, but he certainly wasn’t alone in his observations.
My love affair with the foods of my youth, however, exceeds mere reminiscence. At its core is a singular way of communicating with those I love most, a remnant of my past when overt affection was rarely demonstrated and sentimental declarations were relegated to a world behind closed doors, away from children. Yet my siblings and I felt deeply loved, for in place of fond expression, we had the sublime language of food that emanated from my grandfather’s kitchen.
In 2011, Magistro decided it was time to trade teaching, writing, and philosophy for working with trees in the field. She signed up for a series of courses at UC Davis’ renowned Olive Center and began the journey of becoming an artisan olive oil producer. Five years later, Luretík came to fruition. The name, which means “from this earth,” is a nod to the Basque side of her family. She’s not the only person with a Basque background in the Central California region—Bakersfield, a bit inland and south, has a long-standing Basque American community (so much so that it’s sometimes called “Basquer-field”).
This oil really is terrifically tasty. It also represents a passion and a lifelong dream for Magistro. As she says, “Italians call it un sogno nel cassetto—a dream in a drawer to be realized in some distant future, a time that seems so far off as not to be real. And then one day it suddenly is.”
Like any 21st-century olive oil production, Luretík was not a project without cost—including equipment, planting, and many years of waiting for that first precious harvest to show up (yes, it takes years), it’s a big investment! And, as I’ve found to be true with virtually any subject, the more Magistro studied, the more she realized she didn’t know: “The more questions I asked, the more I learned that the world of extra virgin olive oil is vast and not easily mastered without considerable commitment.”
To be clear, Magistro had shown an equally deep commitment to writing and literature before the olives, teaching at Scripps and doing extensive translation work for many years prior to Luretík’s inception. (If you subscribe to George Saunders’s Substack, there’s a nice exchange between him and Magistro about a book she translated, Behind Closed Doors, by the little-known but important author Maria Messina, which details the lives of impoverished early-20th-century Sicilian women.) In Food & Home Magazine, she describes the feeling she had after she and her husband bought their current 10-acre property:
At sunset that view was akin to looking down from heaven. I’ve always felt that the Santa Ynez Valley chose us. It was never my intention to start a business. I simply wanted to make a high-quality oil that could equal the Italian and Sicilian oils I loved.
We have the Luretík Tuscan-style oil in stock at the Deli, and it is impressively excellent. Made from two of the four classic Tuscan varietals—Pendolino and Frantoio—the oil is firmly but not forcefully green, with hints of green almond and fresh-cut grass, and a walking-on-the-wire kind of pepperiness that brings it all alive near the finish. It would be fantastic on fresh fish, lovely local lettuces, or tomatoes (when they arrive in Ann Arbor later this summer), or just on hot slices of Bakehouse toast! And if you like it, you and I won’t be alone—in 2024, it won a gold medal in the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition and recognition from the Good Food Awards.
Deep appreciation to Elise for all her work to make this special oil possible. As she signs off in her George Saunders piece, grazie infinite (“infinite thanks”)!
