My grandparents were simple farmers and social products of the Depression. Living in this environment, I was raised to honor labor and the fruits of the land. In that same country tradition, everything seems to have a story to explain a point, so here is an article I wrote for the "Foods From Spain Magazine" in 2003 about my selection of the Antara Olive Oil. Although it could be taken as a single-event vignette, it indirectly explains an overriding personal philosophy whereby I hope we're saving farmers, artisan food producers and America one meal at a time! Here is the story:

"I have been a gourmet food importer for almost 10 years with a specialty in artisan products from France and Spain. I wish I could always say that successfully-sourcing products came from stealth and cunning combined with hours of research, and a fantastic professional network. More often, serendipity is the kind angel watching my company.

Serendipity intervened one cold and miserable January about 5 years ago. I was in Tarragona, Spain preparing to visit a vinegar bodega in the country the next day. After dinner, I was strolling the Rambla, a "deli" was open, and there sat a bottle of extra virgin olive oil from the region Antara. I was trying to source an olive oil from Spain that would fill out my product line. I didn't speak Catalan nor Spanish but I asked the question anyway (in French): "Is this any good?" I received the response I have now heard about almost everything probably 500+ times since: "It's the best." In this instance he was actually telling the truth! Antara Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a great value, and won the gold medal in Spain that year. Quality is the simple answer of why I sell Antara. The complex answer of "it's the farmers", has global implications that affect even our own families in the U.S.

The COSELVA that produces the ANTARA, is located in the town of La Selva del Camp in northern Spain in the region of Catalonia, is a cooperative in the old fashioned sense. It has about 1000 members (most of the town). These members cultivate almonds, hazelnuts, and olives. The COSELVA operates one of the few banks in town, has a company store to buy both farming supplies and essential groceries (read: JAMON!!!) and markets the cooperatives' products all over the world: from almonds to Venezuela to olive oil to the U.S. Many of the fields the members cultivate have been in their family a thousand years. The soil is austere and rocky, the area hilly and quite parched. Because of inheritance, many of the plots are small or a patchwork joined together in a way that defies modern agricultural efficiency. While the products are finished in a modern and efficient manner, (who wants to fight about the benefits of a Pieralisi press for olive oil?), the COSELVA members still go out to work as farmers. This is a way of life that only 50 years ago was common in the U.S. Unfortunately big business farming has taken a toll on American life: in the U.S. our family farm tradition is almost dead.

The cooperative's philosophy is to pay the farmer a lot for the raw ingredients and charge less for the finished product. This provides a means to pay farmers enough to stay on their land and preserve their rural way of life while generating sales demand for their products. Every day as I sell Antara, talk about the COSELVA and other small establishments and cooperatives I represent, I feel I am making a concrete gesture of respect to my family (who were farmers) and other rural people throughout the world who get up every day to claim their place in the modern world through back-breaking toil. It is farmers like those of the COSELVA who help us maintain the connection between the food we eat and our lives. By the simple act of eating and enjoying their products with our families and people we love, we are able to support them and their stewardship of our food."

Reprinted from "Foods From Spain Magazine" October 2003

We get solicited all the time for private label merchandise and for the most part I don't like it. Real food is not like dog food; if you run out, you go out and make some more. When the bees die, they die, or it rains on the olives, they're ruined, or it doesn't rain and the olives are ruined. There are a couple of co-packed items we carry, but my rule of thumb is that when there is an artisan product made by a real person, where there is a difference in quality and taste, well, I'd rather that person get the credit for their efforts and commitment. There is a difference say in items that are controlled by an AOC or a DO like the different paprika's where the authentic taste of the product is controlled by the DO/AOC designation or in the case of saffron, very strict quality standards. But the credit for real food and it's flavor goes to the producer. After all, glamour aside, about 3/4 of our time is spent as salespeople (and everyone knows that salespeople don't really work). Our producers work sometimes under difficult physical circumstances (Look at the terraces in Banyuls for instance. Someone has to walk into the terraces to do the harvest. It is too steep and too rough for mechanization.) To me our vendor/partners deserve credit and loyalty for their persistence, their integrity, their discipline and the risk they have implicit in their situation relying on the whims of Mother Nature to pursue their calling. There is a lot more risk for a family's daily life and future making olive oil or walnut oil or salt than there is working for, say an insurance company. The global economy has affected us all and things are starting to become more centralized with huge scale and more homogenation SO, when we support individual producers or small producer-cooperatives by using their names and brands whenever we can even if they aren't catchy (Felabauladilo was a tough one!) we are each casting that social vote for all the farmers and artisans who preceded us and gave physically of themselves so that we could benefit with those we love sharing the communion of the meal.