Posts Tagged ‘Gourmet Gift Baskets’

Vella Cheese

On a trip to Sonoma last year, we made a point of visiting Vella Cheese Headquarters. This aged Sonoma Jack took us by surprise the first time we had it while dining at the Hollywood Bowl. I thought it was an Italian Pecorino, and with good reason, as I later found out. When Tom Vella started his own dairy in Sonoma in 1931, the Italian families of Northern California wanted a hard grating cheese, like their sheep’s milk pecorino or Parmesan of home. The Vella cheese company responded by carefully aging and nurturing their jack cheese, resulting in a delicious cheese and enduring popularity. We feature it in our Handmade Cheese Gift Basket, which showcases artisan California Cheese.

The success of Vella Cheese lies in the personal attention each day’s production is given. Quality starts in the pasture. Every cow is not the same. Every day is not sunny; every blade of grass is not green and lush. But, if you insist on the finest breeding of herds, the best feeds, the greatest care in milking and transporting the top grade milk, you have the best possible natural raw material, and you have set the stage for super cheese. One big advantage to us at Fancifull is that Vella cheese, due to its low moisture content, can stay unrefrigerated for a few days. This enables us to ship a first rate cheese economically in our Gourmet Gift Baskets with FedEx Ground or 3Day services with no compromise in quality. We also feature it in many of our Organic Gift Baskets as well as our Green Gifting Line because Vella adheres to strict principles which make it a sustainable product. Among those are:
They are the first solar powered business in Sonoma.
All the milk in their cheese comes from local Sonoma Happy Cows.
Their whey is biodynamically recycled by the dairy and local wineries.
Only natural ingredients go into their cheese and coatings.
The result is that we have an artisan product sustainably made, which tastes fantastic – sounds like a Fancifull product to me!

Sicilian Village Olives

The Sicilian Village Olives are by far, the most popular olive (and possibly product) we carry in our shop and in our gift baskets. Every time I serve them at a tasting I hear the exclamations, “Oh my goodness, these are amazing”, and they sell out. I have other good olives, but there is something special about these.

Here is what Dave Quartaro, President of Sicilian Village has to say about his process and why his olives are so darn good:

“Nothing else comes close to the taste of a Sicilian olive. That’s because good things take time and, in today’s hurry-up-and-go world, most olive producers take shortcuts – like using chemicals to rush the curing process. Not at Sicilian Village.

Our olives are carefully picked, then allowed to cure naturally in salt – without any rush – until their flavors develop fully. Next, they marinate slowly until they’re infused with the seasonings of a recipe that’s generations old. Only then do we allow the Sicilian Village olives to leave our premises.”

You will find Sicilian Village Olives not just in an Italian Gift Basket, but also in many of our Gourmet Gift Baskets, Wine Gift Baskets and, of course, on the shelves of our shop.

 
 
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