. . buy California olive oil. Remember, we're "over regulated" and "business unfriendly" out here. What you pay for is what you get.

Honey? fortunately you can get honey clearly labeled for point of origin and other characteristics - not that honey is that much more healthy than corn syrup anyway. If you buy processed foods, you get "Chinese honey substitute", end of discussion. The true "take-away" here is to avoid processed foods.

Anyone who ever believed in "Kobe Beef" is a damned fool and the rightful prey of purveyors of this myth.

Pepper cannot be mud if you grind it yourself, Pepper bought pre-ground isn't much different from mud anyway - pepper degrades rapidly once ground. I grind enough for a few days and seal it in one of those tiny gift basket jam jars you have around because you know they must be "useful for something".

Pumped chickens? Well, I don't care. I only use thigh and leg meat for flavor - or leg quarters if I need backs for stock. Out here parts aren't pumped, and you can even get whole umpumped chickens. It's that "over regulated" thing again.

Glued together steaks? Not a problem for me. I don't buy steaks - I'm too cheap. I buy shoulder and disassemble it myself. Even if I did buy steaks, I buy my meat from places with turnover so high they don't have time to glue anything - they have a hard enough time keeping the shelves stocked.

Dyed salmon? Yes, "Atlantic Salmon" is almost always farmed, because Atlantics are almost extinct in the wild, and they tolerate farming much better (like don't eat each other) than Pacific Salmon. The color in salmon is from eating crustaceans, not from the effort of swimming upstream. The dye used is basically the same stuff wild salmon get from crustaceans. Sure, wild salmon is better - but there's nowhere near enough of it. Also, some people prefer farmed salmon for grilling because it's fattier.

. . you will only find Extra Virgin - because that's all that's made here.

Around here the price is similar to that of high quality Italian product - don't know what it might sell for back there.

Two statements I found amusing.

From an old cookbook (from back when ALL cookbooks were written in New York). "The very finest grade of olive oil is made in Italy. Unfortunately they don't export that grade. Fortunately, California produces olive oil equal to the best Italian. Unfortunately, they don't export it either".

This is, of course, no longer quite true, as production is now sufficient to seek export markets.

And from a (now defunct) gourmet cooking magazine a few years back. "That the overall winner of our comparative testing was from California shows that California is beginning to catch up to the Italians".

Yeah, beginning to catch up. This was also from the Northeast, of course, Connecticut in this case.