When I go out to visit my parents in Saskatoon, I don't really expect to come across sophisticated tastes in the prairie. There are of course the Saskatoon berry products and my favourite, fresh raspberries from my parents' garden. When I unintentionally found Oliv, the self-identified "premium olive oil experience", I was both delighted and surprised.
They enticed a visiting friend and I in to the store with taste testing and air-conditioning. It was as if we had walked into a large winery. One half of the store consisted of vinegars, everything from the 18 year old aged to the espresso flavoured. The other half was a selection of oils from the light extra virgin to organic to porcini infused. Immediately, I knew they had won me over. The next difficulty lay in exactly which vinegar or oil I would take home with me. They were more than gracious with my continuing requests for samples. My final choice of cinnamon and pear vinegar left me with no regrets, deliciously accompanying both bread and salad.
Their oils reminded me of an experience I had on my honeymoon in Croatia. We had bought olive oil from an olive farmer on the island Dugy Otok, who poured it from a huge cask into an empty plastic coke bottle. Her candour and earthiness felt authentic and her oil tasted like olives, giving me the first taste of what olive oil should be like. If what the founders of Oliv, Awie and Isabeau du Toit, claim on their website is true, their olive oil is "chemically unaltered" and retains the goodness of oil made straight from the vine.
The du Toit's first store opened in Moose Jaw, SK. They have opened subsequent stores in Regina, Saskatoon and Phoenix, Arizona, but have not yet expanded east to my disappointment. The quality of their product would offer a stiff competition to stores already established in Toronto.
In more recent years, my parents' palate has expanded somewhat. If their shifting tastes are mirrored in the greater population of Saskatchewan, Oliv may have the resources to expand their business into a chain of stores across Canada. I wish them all the success and look to them as gastro-leaders in the prairie.
They enticed a visiting friend and I in to the store with taste testing and air-conditioning. It was as if we had walked into a large winery. One half of the store consisted of vinegars, everything from the 18 year old aged to the espresso flavoured. The other half was a selection of oils from the light extra virgin to organic to porcini infused. Immediately, I knew they had won me over. The next difficulty lay in exactly which vinegar or oil I would take home with me. They were more than gracious with my continuing requests for samples. My final choice of cinnamon and pear vinegar left me with no regrets, deliciously accompanying both bread and salad.
Their oils reminded me of an experience I had on my honeymoon in Croatia. We had bought olive oil from an olive farmer on the island Dugy Otok, who poured it from a huge cask into an empty plastic coke bottle. Her candour and earthiness felt authentic and her oil tasted like olives, giving me the first taste of what olive oil should be like. If what the founders of Oliv, Awie and Isabeau du Toit, claim on their website is true, their olive oil is "chemically unaltered" and retains the goodness of oil made straight from the vine.
The du Toit's first store opened in Moose Jaw, SK. They have opened subsequent stores in Regina, Saskatoon and Phoenix, Arizona, but have not yet expanded east to my disappointment. The quality of their product would offer a stiff competition to stores already established in Toronto.
In more recent years, my parents' palate has expanded somewhat. If their shifting tastes are mirrored in the greater population of Saskatchewan, Oliv may have the resources to expand their business into a chain of stores across Canada. I wish them all the success and look to them as gastro-leaders in the prairie.
