All Live For Olive!

     When you think of Italy, what things would first come to mind? The more common answers would most likely be along the lines of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum, their amazing food, and even wine. But there is another dark horse that many people may not even realize is an essential product in Italian gourmet foods: olive oil. Believe it or not, olive oil is BIG in Italy. Some may even consider ranking it high up there with wine and balsamic vinegar. This leads us up to this month's Gourmet Gab topic which focuses on our Gradassi brand of olive oil from Italy.

Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil

     In this post, we'll cover various topics which include terms you may have heard but did not quite understand what they mean, the Gradassi and C.U.FR.OL brand, and more in depth information of our Gradassi products. Head on past the break to read on. (Note: Images with product in it are clickable links to our Gourmet Import Shop online store where you can buy them directly)

 

Honey, I'm Home!

It is sometimes asked what is sweeter than sugar, and the majority of people would probably answer "honey".....and that's what we'll be discussing today! In case you have been out of the loop, we have received some new products from a Brazilian company called Novo Mel who produces honey made from the rain forests of Brazil. With the varying plant life in their rain forests, many varieties of flowers bloom which in turn means various honeys can be extracted from these exotic plants. And the result of that are these:

The honey jars you see above (from left to right) come from the Orange Blossom, Cipo-Uva Blossom, Wildflower, Eucalyptus Blossom, and the Capixingui Blossom. But before we get into details about these let's go over some of the basics of this sweet substance, in general.


Honey is usually made up of glucose & fructose (monosaccharides; aka simple sugars) and water. It can get even more detailed with even more scientific terms, but we'll try to keep it short and sweet.

Eat To Your "Red Hearts" Content!

Happy Valentine's Day!

And welcome to The Gourmet Import Shops blog! Our goal with this blog is to bring as much information as we can to the readers. Education in the world of gourmet foods is something we believe should to be shared to those seeking it. If you are one of these people, you came to the right place! Keep coming back to find out what goodies we have to share.

Since Valentine's Day is today, we wanted to highlight one of our products which was a big hit the weeks leading up to the legendary special day. If you haven't seen this yet, take a look at this beauty:

How's that for creativeness? This is our special seasonal Donne Del Grano Red Hearts pasta imported straight from Italy, and this easily became our top seller for late January/early February. This pasta is an artisanally hand made pasta with natural ingredients. There is no artificial coloring used for the bold red you see, but instead consists of tomatoes and/or chili pepper powders.

As mentioned earlier, this is a seasonal pasta and is currently available while supplies last. But hey, it doesn't have to be limited to only Valentine's Day right? There's still special days like birthdays, wedding anniversaries (take note of this husbands!),  or simple get-together parties.

We'd love to hear feedback or questions about this particular item. If this pasta inspired the creative chef in you to make an inventive dish or even something simple, we're always happy to hear from you. Feel free to comment, email, post or whichever is your preferred method of communication (handwritten letters are always nice too). We've got our retail website which you can find by clicking here which shows all the imported gourmet products we carry. And for a little teaser, we've got some new products from Italy on its way to join our growing lineup of products. Stay tuned!