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Olives are one of the oldest foods known to man and their one of the tastiest as well.  Their rich history surrounds California’s roots and goes back to biblical days.  However, these delicious fruits have to be cured prior to eating.

If you have ever tasted an olive right off the tree you know the intense bitter flavors will coat your palate for hours.  For many families around the globe curing olives at home as a family is still a time honored tradition (often a multigenerational annual event), but it’s not something that gets shared with mainstream America all that often. 

This is unfortunate as the demand for olives is clearly there.  All over the country the canned olive section at grocery stores is growing and olive products are dominating gourmet food shows. 

On September 18th, 2010
Chaffin Family Orchards
will be hosting an Olive Curing Demonstration at the Chico Grange
(2775 Old Nord Ave, Chico, California 95973),
but we will start off in the afternoon here at our farm
(606 Coal Canyon Rd, Oroville, Ca 95965)
at 1:00 p.m. with a tour of our 100 year old olive orchards. 

The majority of our olives were planted originally by a group of UC Berkeley and UNR professors doing research on the Mission Olive.  Now considered an heirloom variety, California Mission Olives are listed on Slow Food’s Ark Of Taste as a threatened fruit that’s at risk of extinction.

The Mission Olive Preservation group is another organization that works tirelessly to restore old Mission olive groves at the California Missions where they were originally founded.  We have one of the largest and oldest Mission groves still in production for commercial sales. 

We’ll spend time walking under these old majestic giants and talking with a few olive experts about growing olives, farming organically, harvesting, olives for oil, etc. 

We’ll also be demonstrating how Chaffin Orchards has drastically cut their fuel and other inputs by utilizing livestock in the orchards.  The livestock provide desired impacts and produce more crops per acre. 

In the olives the sheep and cows can be used for mowing the orchard floor; the goats actually prune away suckers and lower branches as well as eat invasive weeds like poison oak, wild grape, Himalayan blackberry, and star thistle; then the chickens come in and eat downed fruit (harbors fruit fly larva), any other bugs or pests, and deposit their nitrogen rich manure under the trees.  Utilizing this method the farm uses about 85% less diesel than before having the livestock integrated into the orchards and we’ve been farming this way for about 10 years now. 

It also allows the farm to operate using organic farming methods, and it produces more crops per acre as the wool, meat, and eggs from the animals can all be marketed as well. 

Here’s a video demonstrating how the farm is able to accomplish all this.

We have 4 types of olives suitable for curing, Barouni, Manzanilla, Sevillano, and Mission, and we will discuss each variety and the nuances of each one.

Once we explore the history and intricacies of olives and the farm and then we’ll move over to the Chico Grange at 6:00 p.m. and put on a class for curing the olives yourself in your home kitchen without using any lye.  Lye is what the commercial olive canning industry as well as many home curers use to leach out the bitter flavors in the olives and to soften them. 

Lye is a toxic chemical that is used in many industrial applications and is the primary ingredient in most pour-in drain cleaners.  It’s a caustic substance that destroys most nutrients and can cause severe burns if it comes in contact with skin. 

Olives have been around for millennia as a staple food source in Mediterranean climates around the globe.  Some trees in the Middle East are literally thousands of years old. There are ways to cure without lye; they’ve just become somewhat forgotten in our modern fast food society. 

So we’re going to be hosting olive expert Don Landis to come demonstrate multiple old world natural curing methods that don’t use lye.  Don is a real renaissance man when it comes to olives.  He does everything meticulously, curing hundreds of pounds of delicious olives each year in his own home and then just giving it all away to friends and anyone interested in learning more. 

He loves to share his experiences and teach people about olives and he often consults with both novices and experts alike when they have curing questions.  As a natural public speaker and teacher, guests will go home feeling confident that they can cure olives at home and start their own family tradition.  At the end we’ll sample prepared olives from the multiple curing methods and enjoy some tapenade as well.

Here’s a video of Don at a recent event in
Sonoma doing what he loves best: talking olive.

September 18th, 2010
FREE and open to the public

1:00 p.m. Tour of our 100 year old Mission Olive Orchards
at Chaffin Orchards hosted
by Kurt Albrecht (farm owner) and
Don Landis (606 Coal Canyon Rd, Oroville, Ca 95965)

6:00 p.m. Natural Olive Curing Class
We’ll go over to the Grange building in Chico
(2775 Old Nord Ave, Chico, California 95973)

Don Landis will be demonstrating old world olive curing techniques including dry salt cure, water cured, and the Greek style brine cure.  All cured without using lye.  Samples of the cured olives and tapenade will be available at the end of the demonstration.

Raw organically farmed olives for home curing will be available for purchase or to be sure we’ll have enough email to pre-order

Email chris_kerston@chaffinfamilyorchards.com to RSVP – its not required that people RSVP to attend but it would help us tremendously to be able to prepare enough samples if we knew how many people were coming especially since it’s a free event.

Chris Kerston
Chaffin Family Orchards
606 Coal Canyon Road,
Oroville, Ca 95965
530-533-1676 (Ranch Office)
530-370-6432 (Cell)

Apparently, my little column created a minor stir last week, when Nature’s Whole Food Depot actually sold out of Organic Pastures Raw Milk. I know this, because I sent my husband on a special errand down the hill to pick up some raw milk. 

Get it straight from the cow.

When he arrived they told him they don’t understand why, but they ran out, which rarely happens. I was very disappointed. So, today my husband stopped to pick some up for me, I was glad they still had some on the shelves. I’m guessing I wasn’t the only person in the area who was missing their raw milk. 

You can image how happy I am to report that their price is actually less than Save Mart was selling it for – a lot less. It’s affordable now – if you aren’t huge milk drinkers. 

I used to buy raw milk exclusively but it just got too expensive for us. We don’t drink a lot of milk here. A half a gallon lasts us for about two weeks. I’m the person seen practically climbing into the refrigerator at the market digging for the latest possible date on the milk. I refuse to drink milk past the expiration date. I don’t care if it’s still okay. Trust me; we dump a lot of milk. 

Raw milk is only fresh four or five days after it’s opened. Well, I would be so excited to finally have some in the house that I would open it up right away. Then it would sit in the refrigerator until it started to turn. 

The milk is still perfectly useable even after it begins to turn. I can’t drink it then but I made the boys a pseudo version of kefir and they really liked it. I like to use it for pancakes, battered fish, onion rings and other recipes that call for buttermilk. Unfortunately, I’m not always that organized to plan ahead like that. We normally ended up dumping a great deal of it. 

What can I do with warm or soured raw milk?
Soured raw milk is still a vitally nutritious product and should be cultured for optimal flavor and taste. If you find yourself with a container of souring milk, just put in some live culture (some yogurt or store bought kefir starter, then set the product out for 24 hours at 80-85 degrees. The resulting food is wonderful, delicious, digestible, and highly nutritious. In most countries this is how people drink their milk. Our great grandparents called it Clabbered milk. Other raw milk and raw dairy recipes are available by calling OPDC at 1-877-RAW MILK.

I realized we were just pouring good money down the drain. So, we went back to drinking dead milk, only because it has such an extended shelf-life. It was so nice when it was available at the Twain Harte Market. We were real disappointed when they stopped carrying it. I’d be happy if I could buy it a quart or pint at a time, instead of having to purchase an entire half gallon. 

On a brighter note, as my son was getting ready to leave Nature’s Whole Food Depot, he happened to notice they are not carrying raw chocolate milk. I can hardly wait to try it. I’m so excited. 

I happened to notice awhile back that Organic Pastures carries raw cream in the pint size. Maybe I can talk them into making it available in that size. Then I could buy two at a time, but only open one, making it last longer.  It’s worth a try.

Let me take this opportunity to encourage you to drink raw milk. If you haven’t tried it, you are really missing out on a good thing. The health benefits are worth the drive and the expense. For those who love raw milk, don’t get lazy and buy homogenized, pasteurized, dead milk – especially if you are an allergy sufferer – just because it’s handy. 

“Raw dairy is a super health food and should never be kept back from the public access.”  ~Shawn Dady

Writing this made me thirsty, so I ran into the kitchen for a nice cold glass of milk. There is nothing like fresh organic raw milk. I still have trouble calling this raw milk. When I grew up, the only milk we had was raw, fresh and delicious. It would have never occurred to us to label our milk “raw”. 

Good to the last drop!

Speaking of allergies – perhaps you’ve heard that the new Sonora Allergy Center is holding its Grand Opening on Ground Hog’s Day, February 2,2010.  This is exciting news for Tuolumne County residents; Dr. Andrew K. Hall has purchased the counties first allergy therapy laser. The good news is that this laser doesn’t treat your symptoms or attempt to cover them up, it totally eliminates them. 

According to some experts drinking raw milk can actually cure some allergies too. Wouldn’t it be terrific to simply drink a glass of milk, instead of enduring weekly or month shots and over-the-counter meds, searching for relief from your symptoms? Honestly, it just sounds too good to be true to me, but it wouldn’t totally surprise me. I notice a huge difference in my own body’s response to drinking raw milk. 

Let’s make sure Nature’s Whole Food Depot has to double their raw milk section. They receive their milk shipment on Tuesday late afternoon. So, be sure to get there before they are sold out. I know we’ll be stopping in on Tuesdays. I just wish they received their shipment at 2 p.m. instead of after 4 p.m. but I’ll deal with it. 

See you there.

We stopped in at Save Mart in Sonora a couple weeks ago in search of raw milk, only to find they had stopped carrying it. I was totally bummed out.

Raw Milk

We used to purchase Organic Pastures Raw Milk from the Twain Harte Market and they stopped stocking it as well. One of the problems with carrying raw milk is that is has a much shorter shelf life than dead milk. (Dead milk is milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized, killing any living organisms.)

I’ve found that once a bottle of raw milk has been opened, you have four days to drink it before it begins to clabber. While the milk is still drinkable once it starts to turn, it’s not my cup of tea, if you know what I mean.

My son has a terrible case of tonsillitis and I read that milk is good for the throat. So, I wanted to pick up some raw milk for him to try, since I know it helps with other ailments such as allergies.

I wanted to give it a try but was having trouble finding it locally. Organic Pastures has a listing of local merchants who carry the product. I was happy to learn that Organic Pastures Raw Milk can still be purchased locally at Nature’s Whole Food Depot on Standard Road. I’ll be making a trip over there in the next few days to pick some up, so be sure to save one for me.

According the Organic Pastures website, Save Mart in Modesto, Stockton, and Riverbank still carry raw milk. I am really surprised they stopped stocking it in Sonora, it seemed to sell pretty well (they were always sold out) but I’ll have to check with the manager to find out what happened.

I know that raw milk isn’t cheap but the health benefits are amazing especially for anyone who has trouble drinking dead milk. Neither my husband nor I can tolerate the dead milk sold everywhere. We can’t be sure but I’m certainly happy to know that I can run out and purchase a half gallon whenever I want.

If you haven’t tried drinking raw milk, stop in at Nature’s Whole Food Depot and pick some up. Your body just might thank you someday.