Fran Gage signs her latest book, The New American Olive Oil, at Capitola Book Cafe on August 20.

Fran Gage estimates she has around 20 bottles of olive oil in her kitchen at the moment. The Bay Area writer plans to bring at least one of them to Capitola Book Cafe on Thursday (August 20) for tasting when she signs her latest book, The New American Olive Oil: Profiles of Artisan Producers and 75 Recipes. The event will also include the tasting of oils from local producers Valencia Creek Farms and Belle Farms.

People should have a delicate oil, a medium oil and a robust oil in the kitchen, plus a citrus-infused oil for fun, said the olive oil judge and cookbook author. “That’s a good repertoire of olive oil, I think.”

Gage’s interest in the golden elixir began after she took a course given by the University of California Extension Service while researching her 1999 food memoir Bread and Chocolate.

“It was really fascinating, I learned a lot,” she said. “I took some of that information, used it in the piece I wrote and also took it to the kitchen with me. I cooked a little more with olive oil, but not a whole lot.”

Five years later, Gage was approached by the California Olive Oil Council to try out for their taste panel. “I thought well, why not.” She was asked to join the panel and has been tasting and judging olive oil ever since.

Her experience inspired her to write her seventh book, combining history and facts about California olive oil production with profiles of 15 artisan producers from all over the Golden State. There were two qualities each producer, whose presses run from large to small, had to possess: one, they had to make good olive oil and two, they had to have an interesting story.

“The passion that all these people have for what they do came through every time,” Gage said.

There are three categories of olive oil: virgin olive oil (including extra virgin olive oil), refined olive oil and pomace olive oil. Virgin and extra virgin olive oil are created without the use of chemicals or extreme heat, while refined olive oil is made using heat to render it. Pomace olive oil, which is often used for soap, is made by using solvents on the olive pits and flesh to remove the oil.

Extra virgin olive oil — which according to the California Olive Oil Council “must be judged defect-free with some olive fruitiness” — is what Chris Banthien and partner Bruce Golino create at Valencia Creek Farms under the label Colline di Santa Cruz. The oil, sold locally at stores such as Shopper’s Corner and Deluxe, comes from a mix of Tuscan and Tagiasca olive varietals from six or seven acres of trees grown on Banthien’s 20-acre farm in Aptos.

“It’s a very fruity oil. It’s on the mild side because of the climate that I grow in here,” she said, explaining that olives, like wine, get their taste from the land. “These same trees planted in Paso Robles would give a very sharp, pungent, heavy oil. But I’m right by the coast, so I get a very delicate, mellow, floral oil with a lot of fruit.”

Colline di Santa Cruz is best used as a finishing oil, Banthien said, the final drizzle on meats, vegetables, etc. Heating the oil above 400 degrees ruins the flavor.

“It makes food taste so much better,” said the grower, who also sells Colline at local farmer’s markets. “My olive oil is very food friendly. When you put it on, say, steamed vegetables, it enhances the flavor…. It’s not that it stands out, but it makes everything you cook with it taste better.”

Gage, who owned a San Francisco pastry shop for 10 years, loves to bake with olive oil. “That’s been a real revelation to me….I like to play around with olive oil and substitute recipes that I know that use butter, only using olive oil instead.”

Depending on the oil, the taste changes. A delicate oil will have more of a buttery taste, she said, while a more robust oil will impart more of its fruity flavor.

“What’s really fun is working with chocolate. If you start with really good chocolate, you can pair it with all sorts of olive oil.”

So, how exactly does one taste olive oil? Both Gage and Banthien, who is not one of the producers in the book, describe the process as being akin to the way one tastes wine. The best method is to pour a little in a cup, then place a hand over the cup and twirl it to heat it a little, getting the volatile oils going. Smell it and then take a sip and swirl it on the tongue with a little air.

“Then you swallow it and see if it has a bitterness and a pungency and if so, how much,” Gage said. “Of course, this is ethereal because this isn’t how people do this in real life. You use olive oil to cook and pair it with food.”

Even so, Banthien said, the worst way to taste the oil is the way most people experience it — with bread. “All you taste is the bread, and not the oil,” she said.

Taste locally-made olive oil and listen to Bay Area author Fran Gage speak about her new book, The New American Olive Oil: Profiles of Artisan Producers and 75 Recipes. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 20 Capitola Book Cafe, 1475 41st Avenue, Capitola. Free. (831) 462-4415.

Soif's Chris Avila puts finishing touches on a row of dishes. Photo by Emily Avila.

You won’t find tomatoes in December or partially hydrogenated oils in the kitchen at Soif Wine Bar and Restaurant. What you will find is Chef Chris Avila preparing such stunning fare as a Wild Alaskan salmon tartare with creme fraiche, horseradish and crostini, the perfect pairing to a 2008 Chateau Puligny Montrachet Rosé. From the green bean salad with mission figs to the pan seared flat-iron steak, the dishes Avila creates at Soif are meant to complement the fruit of the vine. The actual pairing is left to wine experts John Locke and Patrice Boyle, with whom Avila owns the Italian restaurant La Posta in Seabright.

The Richmond native found himself in Santa Cruz in 1998 after falling for his now-wife Emily. Though busy, Avila took a few minutes from his schedule to answer some questions for Weekend Santa Cruz.

How many years have you been the chef at Soif? Six.

Where did you learn to cook? From my family, the Contra Costa College culinary program and from other good chefs.

What was the first recipe you mastered? You can never really “master” a recipe. Taste is always changing.

How would you describe your cuisine? Clean, simple, straightforward and respectful of the ingredients.

Favorite unusual flavor combination? What’s unusual? Something normal in another country might be considered unusual here. Experimentation is one of the great things about being a chef.

Where do you find your ingredients? From high quality ranchers, fishermen, growers and local farmers.

Is there a recipe you haven’t quite mastered yet? We have great bread and pizza dough that we make daily at La Posta, but I still like to work on the recipes to make them even better.

If you could go on a food vacation to taste regional cuisine, where would you go? Asia, because I’ve never been there. It’s so different from the food I grew up on, and I love to try new things.

What chef would you challenge in Iron Chef America? Mario Batali because he has a great knowledge of food and an appreciation of where food comes from and how it’s made.

If given an apple, I would make…Pie!

The key to my cooking is…Respect for the ingredients and the people that produce them, which leads to happy customers.

Soif Wine Bar and Restaurant, 105 Walnut Avenue, Santa Cruz. Dinner is served Monday through Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 4 to 10 p.m. (831) 423-2020.

A couple polkas during Maifest at the Tyrolean Inn. The Inn holds Sommerfest on July 18.

Don your leiderhosen and get ready to polka, Sommerfest is here. This Saturday will be the fifth year the Tyrolean Inn in Ben Lomond has held an outdoor summer festival, celebrating the season German-style.

“It feels good to be joined arm-in-arm with your neighbors, swinging back and forth on a picnic bench, singing crazy songs,” said Whitney Parker, co-owner of the restaurant. “The simple pleasures of food, wine, beer and singing with your friends and family. That to me is what Sommerfest is all about.”

Half of a roasted chicken with coleslaw, sausages, roast pig, veal loaf and more are on the menu. There will be an outdoor barbecue for those who want instant gratification.

“Traditional German food at a festival is usually very limited. They usually have a half-roasted chicken and a slow-roasted pork knuckle and then they have sausages, of course,” Parker said. With the state of the economy, she plans to make all the menu items between $6 and $14, with the exception of the schweinshaxe (pork knuckle).

Along with traditional food and drink, the festival will feature a beer stein-holding competition, a pretzel count, children’s bounce house, arts and crafts, a dance floor and performances by Tony Raymann’s Edelweiss Band.

“The polka is actually a very easy dance,” Parker said. “It’s kind of a back and forth 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. I like to pull people out on the dance floor and teach them how to polka.”

In Germany, the Sommerfest days are reserved for traditional music, while the nighttime is filled with rock and roll.

“We tried to follow that tradition for a while, but we realized that people want to come to our restaurant really more for the traditional German music,” Parker said. “They get enough American rock and roll.”

Tony Raymann has been coming to the Tyrolean Inn to play for almost 40 years. The Swiss accordionist travels from Napa County to play in Santa Cruz. His bandmates, a drummer and a trumpet player, come from Lodi and Sacramento, respectively. “It’s quite a drive.”

“There are not many German bands out there, as you can imagine,” Parker said. “So a lot of our bands come from farther away. A lot of them come from three to four hours away, so it’s quite a commitment for them to come all the way down to Santa Cruz to play.”

Raymann said the best part of Sommerfest is that it’s like an Oktoberfest. “You come in leiderhosen and play polkas and waltzes,” he said, adding that he looks forward to playing the “Beer Barrel Polka.” “Everyone knows it, and everybody sings.”

Festivals in Germany involve a lot of sing-a-longs, Parker said. “Everybody knows the words, everybody stands up on the benches, sometimes even on the tables,” said Parker. “Everyone sings as much as they can.”

In America, people are more shy, something Parker has tried to counter by having festival seating, which allows people to mingle.

“You don’t sit at your own table by yourself [in Germany]. You make friends, you sit with your neighbors, you make new friends,” said Parker, who is half-German on her mother’s side. “We’ve had a lot of people over the years come up to us afterwards and say ‘You know, we were a little put off at first that we had to sit next to a total stranger, but then we realized, hey that guy lives right down the street from us.’”

Sommerfest. 2 – 10 p.m. July 18. Tyrolean Inn, 9600 Highway 9, Ben Lomond. $6, but free for children under age 12. (831) 336 -5188. MAP

Cheryl Simons of Cafe Kuumbwa.

Soft and sultry, sharp and improvisational, big and bold. Jazz flows through the kitchen at Cafe Kuumbwa, where Chef Cheryl Simon can be seen cooking on Mondays and many Thursdays. The cafe, the kitchen inside the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, serves an entree dinner before Kuumbwa-produced shows twice a week. Two types of chili, salads and dessert are also on the menu.

Simon has fans among the artists who visit this well-respected venue. Singer and pianist Diane Schuur was apparently so impressed with the food, she made up a song about it on the spot. Dave Brubeck has called Simon’s food “the best dinner on the entire tour.”

The Santa Cruz native, who cites San Francisco chef Joyce Goldstein and the legendary Jacques Pepin as her influences, agreed to let Weekend Santa Cruz get to know her a little better.

How many years have you been at Kuumbwa Jazz Center? A ridiculous amount, 29 years — 14 as chef. The other 15 I was a volunteer and occasionally filled in for the cafe manager. I worked my way into this.

Where did you learn to cook? I’m self taught. Cooking has always come fairly easy. There’s nothing out there that I don’t think I can do. It’s about confidence, but I also have fear. That’s helpful because I cook like my life depends on it. When I cook for Kuumbwa, I take a lot of pride in what I do. ….I learned from the great chefs. I read cookbooks. I read recipes. I know a good recipe when I see it.

What was the first recipe you mastered? I was 16, a know-it-all, and I was a vegetarian. I didn’t even know what tofu was at that point — well, I probably did. My grandmother took me to a wedding in Denver, and I thought “I’m not going to go to Colorado and not go to the mountains.” I told her I was going to take a backpack and see the mountains, see Boulder. My cousin, who was getting married, had artist friends in Nederland. They let me stay with them and I decided to impress them with my best casserole. It was a casserole of white rice, broccoli, Cheez Whiz and some other things , maybe evaporated milk. I cooked a lot as a kid…. I thought it was really, really good. A 16-year-old making a casserole to impress the artists she was staying with.

How would you describe your cuisine? Herb and spice-driven whole food. Simple, fresh and healthy.

Favorite unusual flavor combination? One of my favorite sauces is Moroccan. I don’t find it unusual, but it’s like a Moroccan pesto: chermoula. It is cilantro, parsley, equal parts lemon juice and olive oil, and spices like turmeric, cumin, garlic, cayenne, paprika, salt and pepper.

Where do you find your ingredients? We have great grocery stores: Staff of Life, Shoppers Corner, the farmers market and New Leaf. Staff of Life makes organic food very affordable, accessible. I love the farmers market, but it’s not every day and I shop the day of. I even decide the day of, 90 percent of the time. One of the joys of my cooking is that I get inspired by certain ingredients that come out because of the season.

Is there a recipe you haven’t quite mastered yet? Oh yeah. I find a lot of things challenging. What I like to do is to really master something, like pasta making or gnocchi. It was only through the fear of making crappy, gooey gnocchi that I got really good at it. I made different kinds — beet, butternut squash — over and over. I know something I haven’t done: aspic, which you slice. That’s something I’m going to work on. Another is sausage making. I don’t feel intimidated. I want to teach myself. There’s nothing that I feel that I can’t do.

If you could go on a food vacation to taste regional cuisine, where would you go? I would go to Spain, all over the Mediterranean and North Africa, and Italy, France. I just love North African cuisine. The flat breads and the spices and the lemon and the olive oil.

What chef would you challenge in Iron Chef America? I would challenge none. All the Iron Chefs, they are fearless and that’s not my thing. I shudder to be on camera doing what they do. I’d rather make dinner for 200 people by myself.

If given an apple, I would make…Chutney right now because apples are not in season. I do like apple tarts and pies and crisps. I might make an apple crisp.

The key to my cooking is…Fresh ingredients. It’s also that I’m inspired by what I learned from Joyce Goldstein, whom I’ve never met personally: the unusual combination. I would never put something together for the novelty of it… I really want to find things that work together and complement each other. I’m always looking for interesting combinations and I get that through my study of different ethnic foods. It’s a great way to learn about other cultures too.

Cafe Kuumbwa, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar Street, Santa Cruz. Dinners are served one-hour before Kuumbwa-produced shows and consist of an entree. Vegetarian options are available, as are meat and vegetarian chili, salad, cornbread, and a variety of desserts. (831) 427-2227.