Comments: If you have wandered into a store and been flummoxed by the varieties of olive oil, help is here (mostly). What Fran Gage explains in her new book is how American (California) olive oil is produced, how it has evolved (and reached world-class status) in the last 20 years, and – owing to meaningful California standards – how you can buy it with confidence. (Because standards in the rest of the world, even U.S. standards, do not meet the California marks, you come away from this book worried about non-California olive oil that you may be inclined to purchase or already have on hand.)

Our reviewer, who shall remain nameless and is somehow managing to hold onto his job, was initially dismayed at the pages and pages of text (more than 30!) about olive oil (history, classification, production, purchasing and storing tips, how to hold an olive oil tasting, etc.) before he even got to the recipes. He was none too excited about the prospect of reading profiles of more than a dozen California artisan olive oil producers, either. In the end, he found the explanatory information fascinating and had the most problems with the recipes.

It's not that the recipes are bad, they're just a little unusual (extremely eclectic) and require ingredients that are way to hard to find (perhaps they're hanging from the supermarket shelves and available at every farmers' market in California, but the rest of the world is going to have trouble).

There are 75 recipes here, but not that many recipes where olive oil is front and center. So there are dressings and sauces; in almost everything else – appetizers and small plates, salads and soups, fish, vegetables and side dishes, doughs and pastas, meat and poultry, and desserts (more on that in a moment) – olive oil plays a supporting role. Ms. Gage is determined to convince us that extra virgin olive oil can be substituted for butter in many, many dishes, so her desserts include cakes, cookies, ice cream, and chocolates.

We learned a lot about olive oil from this book, and are going to be better consumers and better cooks.