Olio mio

Jim Mills, the sales manager at Produce Express, provides a lot of local fruits and veggies for Sacramento restaurants. I asked Mills what the chefs are buying these days for their menus:

“We still are in wintertime and winter is citrus time. Blood oranges and Meyer lemons continue to be more popular each year.

“There is more interest in California olive oil now. We’ve gone from 20 producers to over 400, so there’s more out there, and you have a variety of styles and price. The product is fresher than imported, and chefs are enthused about it because people are finding out that not all Italian oil is actually Italian.

“Everyone is very hungry for asparagus, but it’s just starting to happen. We have Mexican product now, but it should be available from the Delta the first week of March.”