My love of garlic runs deep! Most people grab one or two cloves of garlic from the fridge for the evening’s dinner. Not me! I am the guy that sees the words “chop 2 cloves of garlic” in a recipe and immediately thinks, ”obviously, what they mean is: start with 2 cloves and add more to taste, right?” Which generally leads to the sounds of a cleaver destroying an overflowing handful of garlic on the chopping board! Add my love for spicy foods to the mix and voila... the story begins.
Nothing takes me back to childhood more that the smell of garlic crackling in the sauce pan as the olive oil melts into onions until you can see through them. This was always the tell tale sign that Nona was cooking tonight! It also meant that family, wine and conversation would, over the night, mix together to create the perfect atmosphere. Today my home still centres around this simple concept: food, family and fun!
I spent many hours watching Nona cook, most every meal started with olive oil, garlic and onions. Her peppered green beans, packed with black pepper, her peperonata, tocco, bolognese all started with those simple ingredients. This was the inspiration for my cooking and the inspiration for Choose to Infuze. One of my favourite simple dishes is aglio e olio. I learned to make this dish inside and out. Hot and hotter. I worked it over the years until I had the perfect balance of heat and garlic.
Now as a parent I am forced to, at times, cook a batch of pasta "without anything on it" so they "can add butter only by themselves". Which means I usually have a container of spiced garlic oil lying around. Eventually the oil made its way onto a piece of baguette! At that point it became our go to dipping oil for appetizers along with an assorment of cheeses, olives and prosciutto when entertaining.
Over the years the recipe has developed into the flagship Choose To Infuze Garlic Chili Pepper Oil. Still my favourite oil to drizzle on anything! And, thanks to friends and family who were a great source of inspiration and support, have helped us take this product to market.
We love eating this oil at home. It is a staple in our house. We drizzle it on eggs, tacos, pasta, popcorn, avocado toast and a ton of other foods. We are constantly finding new ways to use the oils and we appreciate your feedback and recipes! We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. We look forward to sharing our stories, recipes and ideas along our journey.
Thank you!