This is an archived edition of our Field Report email newsletter. You can sign up at the bottom of the page!

Greetings from Fat Gold!

Summer is almost here. In our universe, that means everything is blooming in Oakland, while Fresno is about to feel like the surface of the sun.

In our previous newsletter, we talked about Kathryn’s transformative experience with a CSA vegetable box from a beloved Bay Area farm. The truth is, our annual subscription program is a form of CSA, and just like those farms, we absolutely depend on it.

It’s lucky, actually: we started Fat Gold with the subscription program not because we were business geniuses, but because we were only farming three acres of olives, so we could only make enough oil to fit that kind of structure. Our first batch went out to just eighty households 🥲

Nowadays, we can comfortably supply our online shop, our shopkeeper partners, and even a few restaurant kitchens (!), but the subscription program remains the solid foundation. Without it, Fat Gold simply would not be in business.

An annual subscription is four 500 ml tins of California extra virgin olive oil, each a different batch, typically a single variety, shipped in December, March, June, and September. Each arrives with an informative zine and a custom-designed magnet, almost like the cover of a magazine!

Folks tend to stick with us. We have seen collections of those magnets sprawling across refrigerators—like, really taking up a lot of display space—and they make the case: once a household starts receiving these batches, they don’t want to stop.

So here’s an enticement. If you begin a regular, ongoing annual subscription before June 1, you can use the discount code SPRINGSTART for $10 off your first year:

https://fat.gold/subscribe/regular/

Then, you’ll receive our June batch almost immediately—fun!

(We have a fixed amount of oil, so, depending on how many folks take advantage of this offer, we might have to close new subscriptions before that date. Just FYI!)

Fall is the time for making olive oil; spring and summer are the time for using it up. Here are a couple of ways we’ve been enjoying our Fat Gold here at the source.

We’ve been starting our days with little doses of olive oil. We used to do this regularly, then fell out of the habit, and now we’re back.

No matter how much olive oil you already consume, more is always better, and this gets some points on the board early in the day. Here at Fat Gold HQ, we don’t usually eat breakfast, so it gives us a bit of ballast and buffers the coffee that follows closely behind.

You don’t have to think about it medicinally, but you certainly can think about it medicinally, and we’ll remind you, this is powerfully healthy stuff.

A tablespoon is a fine amount. It’s easiest to use an actual spoon, but of course you can make this into a little ceremony, like we do:

We’ve lately been dosing with our koroneiki, which is the oil we’ll send to our annual subscribers in early June. Every morning, we are sort of surprised again by its flavor: fruity, spicy, herbaceous. It’s a really great koroneiki!

We have another way to break your fast with olive oil: use Kathryn’s world-famous granola recipe!

This is a versatile base granola recipe that offers endless opportunities for riffing. You’ll start like this:

• 3 cups raw mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachios—whatever you like)
• 4 cups oats
• ¾ cups Fat Gold
• ¾ cups maple syrup
• ¾ tsp flaky sea salt

Put everything in a big bowl and mix well. Dump it onto a couple of baking sheets (line them with parchment for easy clean up). Bake at 300 degrees F for 45 minutes, giving it a stir every 15 minutes or so, until dry and golden.

Make it seedy: in the last 15 minutes of cooking, stir in your favorite seeds: pumpkin, flax, sesame, hemp, sunflower.

Make it spicy: add ground cinnamon or cardamom for warmth and complexity.

Make it sweet: add a little brown sugar along with the maple syrup.

Make it salty: give it an extra pinch of flaky sea salt at the end of baking.

That’s it for this edition. Again, that discount code is SPRINGSTART, and you can use it here.

Thanks, as always, for following along—and thanks especially to our annual subscribers for your foundational support. You make this work possible!

–Robin, Kathryn, and Bryan