Tag: ZINGERMAN’S DELI
Regenerative, rhapsodic, and really delicious!
While winter is not a great time of year here for fresh produce here in Ann Arbor, this is the season in which, slowly but surely, new-harvest olive oils continue to show up on our shelves. I love them all! Each new arrival makes my culinary day. And this one from the folks at Frantoio Grove is especially fine. The aroma alone is amazing—like smelling salts to bring me back from the stress of the news. Feeling uncentered? Stop for a few seconds and smell the oil!
The Frantoio Grove oil is produced in California, about half an hour south of San Jose. There, the fifth and sixth generations of the Martin family are quietly crafting some of this country’s most delicious olive oil. It’s produced using regenerative farming techniques, and its flavor is beyond terrific. While the 2025 harvest is newly arrived, the Martins are definitely not new to the land. The family began growing grapes on the farm all the way back in the 1870s. The Frantoio Grove olives were planted about twenty years ago now by Jeff (the fifth generation) and Pam Martin. They dove deep into a single varietal—the Frantoio, which is the classic olive of Tuscany, putting in about 3,500 trees that first year. As is the way with olive trees, it took a good five years to get oil—2010 was the first meaningful pressing.
For many years, the Martins grew the olives organically, and then a few years ago, they decided to raise the quality of the oil and their care for the land further. Patrick (the sixth generation) explains how they took it to the next level:
We are the only olive grove + mill like this in the world so far, and we are very excited about the program. We’ll be releasing our flagship oil shortly, which will feature the ROC mark. Our goal is to build resilient ecosystems on the farm and produce robust, high polyphenol oil that is wildly expressive but also low on the bitterness and astringency that comes from stressed trees, and this year, early in our harvest, we realized we had exceeded even our own expectations.
I say with certainty that the Martins have hit their mark. The newly arrived new-harvest oil is totally terrific. Like listening to music on an exceptional sound system, it’s really remarkable—everything about it seems clearer, cleaner, more coherent, and very compelling. It’s intensely green and peppery, but in an especially balanced and surprisingly gentle way. A little nuttiness with lots of low notes to go with the beautiful bitterness that comes with early harvests like this. It has hints of green apple, and I’ve also heard it described as having notes of persimmon and pistachio, too. Whatever descriptors you decide to use, the oil is exceptional.
The 2025 Olio Nuovo is lovely on toast for breakfast, especially when topped with the bright-colored, amazing apricot jam from the South of France that the folks at Olbia make. Great on salads, bruschetta, or the Tuscan way, on a just-off-the-grill steak (rare is how they’d cook it there). I’m an advocate for trying it on a simple spaghetti (Rustichella, Mancini, or Gentile). All you need is oil, garlic if you like, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and some grated sheep milk Pecorino, or, alternatively, a bunch of creamy fresh ricotta.
Buy a bottle
P.S. The “regular” 2025 harvest Frantoio Grove oil which, while not Olio Nuovo, happens to also be amazing! It should arrive at the Deli in the next few weeks.
An exceptional taste of 19th-century Switzerland
Once upon a culinary time, a time when attention spans were not in the news very often, a time before websites, cell phones, Instagram, and almost every secret on the planet could seemingly be made visible to anyone willing to sit and scroll long enough, there was an array of unknown treasures one might discover in the course of food-focused world travels. Over 30 years ago, I stumbled upon L’Etivaz cheese while traveling with a small band of cheese aficionados. L’Etivaz was absolutely not on our list of things to check out during the trip. In fact, we’d never even heard of it. Like the white parrot, we spotted it completely unexpectedly. And in the best possible way, both that magical memory and the cheese are still very much with me all these years later.
L’Etivaz was formally brought into existence in 1932. While most of the cheese world back then was becoming more industrialized, around 76 families who farmed the land near the town of L’Etivaz decided to go in the other direction. They turned back toward tradition. Following the frame above, they:
- Knew and cared deeply about their history and tradition.
- Had a clear sense of their values and philosophy.
- Found a way to make this long-aged mountain cheese that kept it very alive, drawing on the old ways for crafting it.
With all that in mind, the families decided to withdraw from what they felt was an increasingly mass-market-focused, government-managed Gruyère program to create their own cheese. They turned away from significant government subsidies, opting instead to keep the magic and lose the “benefits” that modernization promised to bring to the market.
To this day, the production of L’Etivaz remains highly restricted. Interestingly, 72 of the original 76 farms are still making cheese today. Together, they produce just 19,000 wheels of cheese a year. L’Etivaz, by law, can be made only in spring, summer, and early autumn, when the cows are at high altitudes, between 3,500 and 6,500 feet above sea level. The cheese can be made only by those farms, and each farm can use only the milk of its own herd—no milk is ever purchased to make L’Etivaz. The high altitude ensures that the cows are grazing on an amazing array of wild herbs, tiny mountain flowers, and assorted green grasses. No chemicals are allowed at any point in the process, from field to finished cheese, so L’Etivaz is always essentially organic. The cheese must be made using raw milk, which has to be warmed in traditional copper kettles. True to tradition, the heat for the kettles must come from open wood fires!
This newly arrived batch of L’Etivaz that’s on the counter at the Deli this week is particularly special. It’s made by Frédéric and Marina Rosat and their family, high in what’s known in Switzerland as “the Alpage.” Our wonderful importer, Gourmino, who makes so many of our amazing artisan Swiss cheeses possible, shared this: “At the age of 15, Frédéric discovered the magic of making L’Etivaz AOP by helping producers.” Today, Frédéric and Marina have a herd of 45 Brown Swiss cows whose milk they use to make this magical cheese at an altitude of over 4,500 feet. From May 10 to October 10, they craft at most two 80-pound wheels of this artisan specialty each day. They number the wheels throughout the season. The first wheel is No. 1, and they make up to 290 wheels for the whole year. Gourmino selects only wheels from an even narrower production window: June to September, when the grasses and herbs in the Alpage are at their best. The newly made wheels are all hand-salted with Alpine salt for seven days on the mountain and then shipped down to the L’Etivaz co-op building, where all the producers’ cheese goes into the same decades-old brine solution. No other mountain cheese uses this process.
The Rosats have three huts they work out of in the mountains, gradually shifting to higher altitudes to make cheese until the height of summer. Then, they slowly work their way back down the mountains. Doing this keeps their herd on new grass, which must be the grazing equivalent of dining on olio nuovo (really green, new harvest olive oil). They manage grazing and milking in the mornings, then make cheese (over the open fire, of course) in the afternoons.
At just over a year and a half old, the current batch of L’Etivaz has a wonderfully balanced, beautifully full flavor. This wheel is markedly more fruit-forward but is still smooth and creamy, with a hint of brown butter, a lovely bit of salt, and a super-clean, long finish. Surprisingly, it’s subtly sweet in the most balanced way. Not at all salty or bitter, with a smattering of those crunchy bits of crystallized amino acids that some well-aged cheeses tend to get.
You can eat the L’Etivaz on its own. It’s also great on a slice of the Bakehouse’s Vollkornbrot, Dinkelbrot, or Country Miche. Spread on Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter and add a good bit of freshly ground black pepper. Make fondue. Put it in a salad. Eat, enjoy, and help engender the continued health of these deeply committed mountain cheesemakers.
A cheese worth choosing
Ship some to someone special
Enjoy a taste of European travels… without leaving Ann Arbor! Kerrytown Concert House, a non-profit dedicated to the performing arts, has partnered with Zingerman’s Delicatessen to create a special musical series with a side of culinary culture. Each evening of this three-part series focuses on a different country, you’ll enjoy complimentary wines and a guided tasting of a selection of foods from the location, while listening to regional music.
Melodies & Morsels: France Edition
with the irresistible swing of Django Reinhardt’s “Hot Club of Paris” style jazz
Friday, January 23 @ 7 pm
Melodies & Morsels: Italy Edition
with the critically acclaimed Italian folk music of Alla Boara
Thursday, February 19 @ 7 pm
Melodies & Morsels: Ireland Edition
with a journey through Celtic soundscapes performed by Celtic Trio, Selkie
Thursday, March 12 @ 7 pm
All three events will be held at the Kerrytown Concert House, located at:
415 N. 4th Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI
Enjoy Melodies & Morsels with us: kerrytownconcerthouse.com
This originally appeared in the January/February edition of Zingerman’s News—check out the rest of the newsletter!
A magical confectionery combination from Dubai
If you’re looking for a gift for someone who loves great food and is intrigued by the unusual, this rare, terrifically delicious, sweet treat from Dubai might just do the trick. I’ve tasted a lot of excellent foods over the last 44 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything like this one! The folks at Mirzam in Dubai have been quietly making some of the best chocolate confectionery around. This exceptional combination of spun-honey “seafoam,” dipped into bean-to-bar 62% dark chocolate, is one of the best examples of their cross-cultural creativity. Kathy Johnston, whose leadership has helped make Mirzam the caring, quality-focused place it is, turned me on to it a while back when she wrote:
Our Emirati “Honeycomb” is always a super-popular one over in Dubai. It’s made with local mountain honey which is very dark—and actually more herbal or even medicinal—rather than sweet. The bees are tiny, and don’t have stings, and gather the nectar from ‘Sidr’ tree flowers.
The wild Sidr would be what we here call buckthorn. Known historically as “Jesus’ thorn,” the bark and roots of the bush are highly prized for a host of medicinal purposes as well as for eating. The honey has the same pH level as the human body and hence has long been used for skin issues, infections, inflammation, and digestive complaints. Sidr honey is hard to find and highly prized. (For those in the know about naturopathy, in its home region, it is used much as Manuka honey is used now here in the U.S. and traditionally in Australia.) A 10-ounce jar of the wild Sidr honey retails for around $40, and I’ve seen some go for as much as $80.
To make this rare and magical confection, which is also known as sea candy, hokey pokey, fairy food, cinder toffee, or, as per the name on the package, “honeycomb,” the honey is brought to a light boil with a small bit of baking soda and vinegar. This makes the confectionery equivalent of the kind of foam that forms along the seashore from the waves, hence the name. You can imagine it as a caramelly, dark “honey brittle.” The cooked honey is poured out into big sheets, then broken by hand into smaller chunks. In the process, the “honeycomb” becomes a light, gently crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth confection that’s then dipped into the 62% dark chocolate.
The beautiful box was designed by Saeed Al Madani, who hails from Abu Dhabi, a bit to the south of Dubai. His artwork draws on traditional Arabian art elements, combined with inspiration from the Emirates Mars Mission “Hope Probe.” The Emirati Honeycomb has a lovely, clean finish and a flavor that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever tasted. I’m still savoring it half an hour after I finished eating a small sliver! A great gift for the holidays and a lovely way to ring in 2026 on New Year’s Eve!
Wondering where to find the Emirati Honeycomb from Dubai? It’s displayed on the shelves at both the Candy Store and the Deli.
Honeycomb at the Deli
And at the Candy Store
Creamy, caramelly deliciousness from the Netherlands
Looking for an amazing artisan cheese that guests of every culinary stripe are almost sure to like? This remarkable—and remarkably delicious—aged goat cheese from the Netherlands is a great candidate to fill the bill.
Brabander is indeed one of the tastiest aged goat cheeses I’ve gotten the chance to eat in ages! Creamy and smooth, with a goat flavor that’s amazingly accessible and appealing to pretty much every palate. As someone who’s been eating artisan cheese all over the world for over 40 years, I find it fabulous. So, too, do folks who’ve never had a cheese of this quality— sweet, almost caramelly, what’s not to love?
The Brabander cheese comes from the Brabant region in the southern part of the Netherlands, which is along the Belgian border. The cheese is made for, and then aged by, Betty and Martin Koster, who own and run the Netherlands’ best artisan cheese shop—if you’re going to Amsterdam, please stop by L’Amuse and say we sent you! Brabander starts with the milk of the old breed of Saanen goats from a co-op in the region. The young cheeses are then carefully aged by the Kosters to develop their delightful flavor. The maturing is done mostly at ambient temperature (they use the coolers only a few days each year, when the weather gets particularly hot) so that natural air moves around the wheels as they age. And this extra-aged Brabander Reserve gets an additional eight months of maturing to make the flavor even bigger than usual!
Brabander is a bit like the most popular person at a party: Whoever or whatever you pair it with, you can be pretty sure it’s going to get along well. It’d make a marvelous grilled cheese on the Country Miche or Roadhouse bread from the Bakehouse. It’s great in the Dutch style for breakfast: Serve slices of it along with good bread, butter, some hot tea, or with the super-tasty 2025 Holiday Blend coffee I’m sipping on now while I scribe! Or have it for a snack with some Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter and a slice of the Bakehouse’s Vollkornbrot. Brabander pairs perfectly with honey, or if you’re having it for breakfast, with jam. Light, creamy, and compelling in flavor, firm and almost but not quite crumbly in texture, the Brabander is caramelly in a way that would work really well with walnuts or hazelnuts. Throw a few cubes of Brabander on a salad with some of those nuts and slices of fresh apple. Very good on a ham sandwich, too! And a wonderful way to welcome in 2026!
Add Brabander to your bag
Ship some to someone special
The excellence of Enzo’s early-harvest oil arrives in Ann Arbor
Some foods are so seasonal that they’re only available for a few weeks a year, even in the Industrial Age. Three of my favorites come to mind. Michigan strawberries in June. Fresh Great Lakes smelt in April. And new-harvest olive oil in the fall! Though I could eat all three of them happily year-round, the natural reality is that the window in which we can enjoy them is relatively short!
New-harvest oils are always extra peppery because of the abundance of polyphenols that are present in high ratios right after the oils are pressed. They’re big, bold, and beautiful, with grassy greenness that gives them a considerable wow factor. Unlike wines, which will generally stay stable in the bottle, olive oil softens in flavor a small bit every day. From one day to the next, you probably wouldn’t notice, but by the time the new-harvest oil is a couple months old, it will have lost a fair bit of its natural peppery pungency. It will, mind you, still be delicious—just less intense than when it first came out of the press. Which means that now, not after the holidays, and not next spring or summer, is the premier time to appreciate its full flavor!
One of my favorite times of the annual culinary calendar has officially arrived in Ann Arbor: The first new-harvest olive oil of the 2025 season has hit the Deli’s shelves! This year it’s a super-tasty oil from the Ricchiuti family—the fourth generation to work the family’s farms. Their oil, packaged under the label Enzo, is named for the great-grandfather of Vincent Ricchiuti, the creative successor to this inspiring family legacy. Made from Koroneiki olives, it’s so good that a few years ago it made Food & Wine’s “Five Favorite New California Olive Oils” list.
The new-harvest oil is fantastic on anything you like to drizzle olive oil on—bruschetta, pasta, vegetables, fish, steak! Use it to take your popcorn to a whole new level. Try it on toasted Paesano bread. Pour it onto a nice slice of good feta or a bowl of fresh ricotta. If you want a great breakfast, toast a thick slice of bread, pour on a bit of olive oil, and spread it with one of the wonderful jams or honeys we have on hand. It’s edgy, engaging, and excellent!
One little-known note on new-harvest olive oil: Although they never taught me this in Hebrew school growing up, in the years after we began working with great olive oils, it became clear to me that the Chanukah miracle is actually tied to the arrival of new-harvest olive oil. Think about it. The priests were waiting for more “holy oil” to arrive at the Temple. In pretty much every culture, what is offered first is always the first fruits of a harvest. What time of year are olives harvested in the Northern Hemisphere? And what holiday happens around the same time? Add all these questions together and the obvious answer is that the Maccabees were waiting to bring the new-harvest olive oil to the Temple to relight the Eternal Light with the “holy oil” we hear about when the Chanukah story is told.
By the way, if you want to taste the oil in action, swing by the Roadhouse for the Cal-Fiorentina dry-aged, pasture-raised steak. Finished with a generous dose of the Enzo new-harvest oil, it’s fantastic. To give some context, La Fiorentina is the classic steak dish of Florence. Combining “La Fiorentina” with the California origins of the oil, we got … Cal-Fiorentina!
Whether you’re at the Deli, the Roadhouse, or your house, if you like attention-grabbing green oils like I do, do not miss this one.