Idea Engine

By J.J. Hudson

Walk down Center Street in downtown Yuba City any summer Saturday morning and you can taste the bounty of this land.

Juicy cherries and sweet strawberries are just two such pleasures. Growers sell scallions, fresh garlic cloves, apricots, plums, peaches and nectarines. Later, as the summer grows hot, tomatoes and melons will appear and the market will build to a mid-July crescendo.

Everything is grown nearly within a plum pit’s throw of the Yuba City Farmers’ Market.

Along with garden vegetables and tree fruits, there is a wealth of unique products such as apriums, a hybrid cross between an apricot and plum, and olives stuffed with hickory smoked almonds. Perhaps the most unique product is a private brand of olive oil pressed from olives grown in the foothills overlooking Marysville and Yuba City.

Michael and Monica Keller sell their own private label of extra virgin olive oil called Calolea. To be considered extra virgin, an olive oil must contain less than 1 percent free fatty acid. Calolea has an extremely low fatty-acid content of 0.13 percent.

Michael Keller has been making olive oil for five years, the last three of which he has owned his own olive orchard. Most of the olives he grows on his 10 acres in Loma Rica are of the Mission and Manzanillo varieties, which he grows on trees more than a hundred years old. Recently he started raising some unique Tuscan varietals such as Frantoio, Leccino and Coratina.

"I’m growing 35 Italian varietals which are very fruity," he explained. Eventually, he hopes to blend the oil from his Tuscan varietals with the oil he presses from his Mission and Manzanillo olives.

"Every year is different," he said. "You never know what you are going to get. Last year, the oil had an apple taste. This year it has a grassy-nutty flavor with a pepper punch." He encourages passerbys at the farmers’ market to sample Calolea as if it were a fine varietal wine.

After olives are hand picked in fall and winter, they are stone crushed and pressed at the McEvoy Olive Ranch in Petaluma. Keller explained that stone crushing is better for releasing antioxidants and polyphenols from the olive. Antioxidants and polyphenols are believed to have positive health benefits.

After crushing, Keller presses his olives cold, which means that the oil has never been heated over 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Olives are pressed within 24 hours of picking to keep the acidity of the oil low.

The final stage of the process is the bottling and labeling - all done by Keller in the kitchen of the Bonanza Inn Convention Center. When not managing his olive operaiton, Keller tends bar at the Bonanza on Monday and Tuesday nights.

The final product, sold in 500 and 250 milliliter bottles, finds its way to retail outlets and farmers’ markets throughout Northern California.

"It is full-bodied. It’s so different from what you get in the stores," he said.

Keller and his wife Monica, affectionately known as "Honey Bear" of Honey Bear’s Farm in Loma Rica, have also branched out into soaps and scrubs using olive oil as a base. Much of the soap is sold to spas under their own private label. The scrubs are a new product this year and come in two varieties, lavender rosemary and lemon sea salt.

Published June 12, 2003 in the Appeal-Democrat