Finding original present ideas for friends and family tends to get more and more difficult with age, especially when it's an important birthday such the big four 0 or even five 0. The pressure is on to buy something thoughtful, unique and stylish.
Visiting the Real Food Show last week, we came across the perfect gift, suitable for anyone in your life who appreciates good food and cares where it comes from.
The Nudo adopt an olive tree scheme allows you to choose an olive tree for one year and receive its delicious produce. Simply log onto the website, choose your tree from various different Italian groves and find out about the area, the farmer who will be tending your tree and the taste of the oil.
When you have chosen and adopted a tree, you recieve an adoption certificate and your tree information booklet. Over the course of the year you'll receive two more packages, one in the spring and one in the autumn, containing all the produce from your tree. They do state that they actually harvest about 50 trees at a time in order to have enough olives to press, but ask you to think of it 'as being about society rather than the individual.'
We tasted some of the oils and they were delicious, we also loved the packaging and the story behind the brand which they have recently published in The Dolce Vita Diaries. The book tells how co-founders Jason Gibb and Cathy Rogers, left careers in London to start an olive farm in Italy. Jason says;
"It's a very funny, deliciously different foodie travelogue about the trials and tribulations of setting up a olive oil business in rural Italy. It's a warts-and-all account of what it's really like to throw it all in, follow your dream and end up in the middle of a European nowhere untouched by modernity. At the end of each chapter are delicious recipes which we used along the way."
We haven't read the book yet but will definitely be adding it to our summer reading list and the recipes sound like a must for anyone who's expecting a delivery of oil from their adopted tree!
