Olive Oil

[chrisinhouston]

When my wife and I rented a small home in Crete a few years ago the owner invited us up to their place after dinner. She was making loukoumades, the Greek version of donuts. They fry the balls of dough up in oil and after draining them they sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and you can eat them plain or dipped in honey!

I asked her what oil she was using and she said extra virgin olive oil of course (there were olive trees everywhere in Crete). I remarked that in my country we would use canola or peanut oil. "Why would you do that," she asked with a distasteful expression on her face. She thrust her hand in the air and said, "We use olive oil for everything, it's a gift from God!" I always think of her frying those puffs of dough when I hear Rachel Ray saying never use olive oil for frying as it has a lower flash point.

Her husband said he was going to have to get more olive oil from the local mill later in the week. He showed me a 50 gallon plastic drum like the kind we have here that soda companies use to hold their syrup at the bottling places and I used to make my rain barrels from. He said they went through a barrel every month or so.