Stillwater Olive Oil Company

I toyed with the idea of keeping this blog specific to Minneapolis and St. Paul and their immediate suburbs, Stillwater being a bit of a stretch.  But it's my blog so I can break (or rewrite) my own rules whenever I like.  And I just love these olive oils and vinegars too much to not sing their praises.

I love to cook.  Along with this little blog I also keep a pretty active food blog, Edible Avocation, and my Stillwater Olive Oil favorites are called upon frequently to make my good recipes even better. I used up the last of my Herbs de Provence olive oil on Thursday (is it sad that I can pinpoint the moment I used up the last drop?) so I knew a trip to Stillwater had to be in the cards for the weekend. The shop also has locations in White Bear Lake and Rochester, neither of which I've frequented, and while White Bear Lake would be a smidge closer for me, I prefer wandering the streets of downtown Stillwater after gorging on (ahem, I mean, "testing") a couple dozen oils/vinegars.

My picks this weekend were two favorites, Herbs de Provence olive oil and Juniper Berry vinegar, and two new-to-me flavors, Red Apple vinegar and Sicilian Lemon white vinegar.  I've still got a healthy stash of the Harissa olive oil, which adds an awesome spice to absolutely anything and reminds me fondly of the Harissa flavors of my Moroccan life.

And while I highly recommend stocking your own kitchen with an exciting array of these goodies, I also cannot stress enough how awesome a gift these make.  They have a wonderful sample size and you can mix and match flavors to suit anybody's taste.  I've used the sample gift for birthdays and housewarmings several times.

Note: Don't store your oils by a window.  I only did that for picture purposes.

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