Queen Creek Olive Mill

One day during our visit to Arizona Sandi, Amy, and I made a trip to the Queen Creek Olive Mill. They'd both been before and I'd heard so many great things about it. I think I even saw it featured on the Travel Channel or the Food Network, I can't remember which. Anyway, I was so excited to go and doubly excited that they'd want to go again with me. I totally got my geek on and loved every second of it!

When you walk in you see shelves of all the products that they make and sell along with a little cafe. There, of course, was a great olive bar.

There were all sorts of stuffed olives lining the shelves. Olives stuffed with wasabi, maytag blue cheese and almonds were among all the varieties.

There was also great accompaniments to go with the olive products you picked up. My favorite is this caramalized onion and fig spread. I also picked up some parmesean spread for my parents.

I'm kind of sad I didn't get a picture of all the beautiful olive oils. I love the color and seeing so much of it together was so pretty. I bought some meyer lemon olive oil for me and some bacon olive oil for my dad. There was every flavor you could think of there from herbed olive oil to chocolate olive oil.

You can see a little bit of the olive oil bottles in this picture. They had all kinds of dressings and other deliciousness to pair with their oils.

We took their brief tour, the place is really small, and at the end they brought us into where the press is. Robert teased me about taking a picture of barrels, but inside each of these there were olives brining. The mill partners with a local monastery and the monks there brine and stuff all the olives that the mill sells. I thought that was really great.

Here's the press they use. I completely understand the draw of modern convenience but I will always find more romance in the ancient stone olive presses.

Here is the sampling bar. It was mostly oils and dressings here. They even advised how to go about sampling the oils and in what order. It was really fun. Honestly, though, I don't know how much I love olive oil on it's own. Bread and other vehicles change the flavor of the oils but I'm not a fan of drinking straight olive oil.

Next was my favorite part of every day. Lunch! I had so much fun perusing the menu and couldn't decide. Amy and I decided to get lots of little appetizers and tasters to share so that we could try as much as possible. This was a great sandwich with the caramelized onion spread on it.

Different types of bruschetta were on the menu and Amy and I had to try them all.  We ate very well that afternoon!

Afterwards I made the girls pose with me for a picture. I had so much fun that afternoon and would do it again in a heartbeat!  I love that I have such great family to spend time with.  I also love that they know how much I love food and learning about food and indulge me!