CULINARY THRILL SEEKING — All the olive and plenty to love

Published 8:30 am Monday, September 27, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Awesome oil and smooth soap are just two specialties of TRE Olive, products, connected to the Calabria region of Southern Italy.

Three (TRE) cousins started TRE Olive to prevent dilution. So you’re getting the real olive thing from a proud family. Cool can, great flavor it suits my morning egg and drizzles over popcorn.

A generous block of creamy, gentle soap is formed from “leftover” olive oil from the previous years’ harvest. You can even get it in a fig or rosemary scented bar.

Subscribe to our free email newsletter

Get the latest news sent to your inbox

The box said side effects include smooth Mediterranean skin that everyone will want to touch. It’s a heavy chunk of pure soap.

Check out candles, too, at treolive.com.

SeaBear

The thought of a bear nabbing a salmon and enjoying it as much as I do could be the closest I get to the Pacific Northwest.

SeaBear Smokehouse of Anacortes, Washington, is bringing the region to my table in a shelf stable sealed pouch. Packaging has origins with the family that started it all in 1957.

Just like Jim LaBove’s Cotton’s Seafood family collected seafood from the marshes of Sabine Pass for restaurants, Tom Savidge and his wife, Marie, built a backyard smokehouse and sold to local taverns.

I had beautiful, rich smoked salmon for a luxurious Meatless Monday dinner at table and relished Idaho Trout Smoked steelhead in my car.

If you’ve got to eat on the run, make it good. These pouches travel. Smoked fish is a holiday treat, and it’s very good to keep on our hurricane prep shelves. Learn more at seabear.com.

Fit Pumpkin Update

If wrestling a huge pumpkin is not how you want to get your seasonal flavor, take a powder. Pumpkin Spice PBfit is the taste you crave, conveniently.

This version of the original is a fragrant blend of peanuts, coconut palm sugar and spices. Mix powder with water for a low-fat, natural and gluten-free kick you can spread on a sandwich, blend into a smoothie or bake into pancakes, etc.

It yields high flavor in a blend that has 90 percent less fat and about a third of the calories of regular peanut butter, when prepared as directed.

It all begins with real roasted pressed peanuts and is seasonally perfect to top your oatmeal. I’m putting some in a shaker to keep it handy for the next two months of breakfast variations. Pumpkin all the way at betterbodyfoods.com.

Super Power Bars are very delicious plant-based organic double dark chocolate brownie bars. They have a richness I don’t feel guilty about with 10 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber and 1 gram of sugar.

They actually taste like something you cut out of a pan, but they’re packaged to stash in your purse. These gluten-free babies from reset360.com are certified organic and Dr. Sara Gottfried puts her name on them.

Un-Honey

Is your Un-Honey a blonde? I love the copper, which is “chocolaty and carmelly” according to the label.

That doesn’t go through spell check but it I’m gonna let it pass on warm toast. Try these beauties from The Single Origin Food Co. in your coffee. Un-Honey is plant based so no bees were harmed in this so-like-honey-it-may-crystallize creation.

“Cruelty Free and Still Killing It!!” is another boast on the label. Blonde comes from coconut, Amber has cane and Copper comes from dates.

These are organic, unblended nectars. That’s why some of this heavenly sweetness reminds me of my dad drizzling some Steen’s cane syrup over hot French bread after a trip through Louisiana.

This is a modern take on a classic that can go right into your coffee or on an appreciative breakfast side dish. www.thesofo.com

Darragh Doiron is a Port Arthur area foodie. Share ideas with her at darraghcastillo@icloud.com.