Find Your Your New Secret Ingredient Here

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Owners, Bob and Mona Rossero, have had remarkable success since opening The Crushed Olive in Huntington over nine years ago, opening four more stores on Long Island.

By Sophia Ricco

sricco@longislandergroup.com

 It doesn’t take much to spice up a meal or keep skin soft, with the help of nature’s oils and The Crushed Olive in Huntington village.

The store sells over 60 different olive oils and vinegars, that are held to a high standard of quality and freshness. Owners, Mona and Bob Rossero, originally opened The Crushed Olive while living in Hickory, North Carolina, after visiting another oil tasting shop.

“We had no idea what we were doing, but put one foot in front of the other,” Mona said. “We got the store open before Thanksgiving and it was an instant success.”

Both Long Island natives, they decided to bring their business back home and opened their first store in Huntington in 2011. Since then, The Crushed Olive has opened four stores on Long Island, spanning from Babylon to Wading River. They offer a unique shopping experience, allowing customers to sample multiple oils and discover flavors, like blackberry ginger olive oil and passion fruit balsamic vinegar.

“Our real success is that people can try anything they like,” Bob said. “If you’re shopping somewhere, you’ll see a lot of bottles but have no idea what it tastes like. Here you can actually taste it and try it with some bread, then we can fill it fresh for you.”

The Crushed Olive sells over 60 flavors of olive oil and balsamic vinaigrettes, that can all be tasted in the store.

Business has boomed at the shops as people become more cognitive of what they are putting into their bodies. Part of food groups on Facebook, Mona has seen members search for healthy options, that tastes good.

“I honestly think people are starting to think more about where their food is coming from and what’s in it,” Mona said. “When I see people looking for salad dressings, all I think is there’s so much junk in it. Where as you could take a teaspoon of olive oil and vinegar and mix it together. There’s no chemicals, no added sugar, it’s like wine, there’s nothing added to it.”

It’s easy to incorporate oils and vinegars while cooking. The Crushed Olive providing recipe cards and inspiration for dishes. Turn a simple boxed brownie mix into a fruity sensation, by substituting canola oil for blood orange olive oil. A favorite with foodies, the tuscan herb olive oil blends classic seasonings together, with sundried tomato and garlic for a punch of Italian zest.

“I think people like the ease, that you can take a plain piece of fish or a bowl of pasta and just add a little bit of olive oil and vinegar, and you’re done,” Mona said. “You don’t have to have herbs on hand, it does all the guesswork for you.”

The Crushed Olive is supplied by a top-notch distributor, who grew up in the business and has extremely high quality standards, supplying the military and U.S. Olympic teams as well. They call her a “Mother Earth”, who has taught them a great deal about oils.

“She travels all over the world and procures these olive oils,” Mona said. “Everytime there is a harvest, which is every six months, she goes to the different estates and tests them, to make sure they are what they say they are.”

During a visit to California, Mona had the opportunity to watch the oil making process. From the farmers shaking the trees and the olives falling right into the hopper to processing, washing and crushing them into a thick paste.

“All of our olive oils are first pressed and cold pressed,” Mona said. “The first press will be the highest in nutrients and if you use warm water, you get a bigger yield but it’s not as high in nutritional value.”

Considered to be the freshest and highest grade, extra virgin olive oil is not treated with chemicals or altered by temperature, giving it many nutritional and health benefits. The Crushed Olive recommends to always check the chemistry of extra virgin, to ensure it is authentic.

“Labs basically take a sample of the olive oil and do a chemistry on it, to make sure it’s fresh, the antioxidants are accurate and the fruit was fresh when harvested,” Mona said.

Extra virgin olive oil should have high levels of oleic acid, low peroxide value, a high polyphenol count and a small percentage of free fatty acids, indicating the fruit was fresh.

Freshness is key. It is essential to use olive oil with a year of purchasing, for maximum flavor. Once a person finishes a bottle, they are encouraged to clean and bring it back for recycling.

“We find that when people first come in, they buy the smaller bottles and as they come back, they get bigger and bigger bottles,” Bob said. “We have five size bottles, so you have the small one to try it, up to the big 750.”

 

The Crushed Olive

278 Main St, Huntington

631-423-1500

thecrushedolive.com

Solve A Crime On A Deliciously, Diabolical Tour

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By Sophia Ricco

sricco@longislandergroup.com

 A crime has been committed in Huntington and it’s up to foodies to follow clues and their appetite to figure out. Food Done It?

This one-of-a-kind food tour experience, Food Done It?, combines the fun of solving a mystery with a sampling of Long Island’s prime restaurants. Founders Elizabeth and Kevin Hindley, wanted to showcase local eats with a fun twist inspired by escape rooms, trivia and the TV show Sherlock. The idea came to Elizabeth in 2017 after a student’s parent asked her about her passion for food.

Elizabeth has a deep appreciation for Huntington’s village full of eateries.

“In Huntington I had grown up going from restaurant to restaurant,” Elizabeth said. “We would never eat at one place. We’d always have a progression. Have a little bit of this and a little of that. We would call it ‘grazing’.”

The Hindleys took the idea of a mystery food tour and ran with it studying towns’ restaurants scenes, crafting characters for the crimes, and creating engaging puzzles for clues. As a grassroots startup, Food Done It? was eager work with other local businesses.

“Our heart and our passion is to celebrate Long Island restaurants with our tour,” Elizabeth said. “These are people who are spending thousand of dollars, have their whole heart in it and have so many moving pieces, we want to showcase that.”

Food Done It? operates in Huntington, Patchogue and Babylon. Each locale has a unique mystery to solve, from an stolen engagement ring to a chili-eating champion found dead in a freezer.

“We’re basically building a fictitious town on Long Island called Mist Reef Hill,” Elizabeth said. “If you say it really fast, it sounds like mystery-ville. We’re trying to set the level really high, so that the people who really do get into it understand these little nuances.”

“Inspectors” for the F.D.I. are equipped with glasses adorned with fake mustaches as they eat their way through the crime at a variety of eateries.

“Every tour has literally and figuratively its own flavor,” Elizabeth said. “Some places bring out a huge platter that you can all dive into, while others have a mini-menu and you can choose your own.”

Those who embark on the “Cupcake Conundrum” in Huntington will enjoy five courses and around four hours of entertainment as they interrogate suspects and solve clues.

“People get tired of routine. We all have a need for comfort, but we also have a need for adventure,” Kevin said. “It hits that mark and helps people relax and have fun.”

Characters come to life with the help of drawings by California artist Jack Kasprzak and Kevin’s thoughtfully-written dialogue that gives each suspect a persona.

“Some people get really into the game and mystery, while other people are just foodies and love to try different things,” Kevin said. “It draws a lot of different kinds of people.”

Inspectors must solve puzzles related to the mystery, to unlock their next restaurant stop. As a teacher, Elizabeth was able to create interactive puzzles with props like wooden ciphers and magnets to simple word scramblers on paper.

“We had to create puzzles that were interactive and just at that sweet spot, where you’re waiting for your food to come and you’re enjoying the puzzle but it’s not too hard or easy,” Elizabeth said.

Living in East Patchogue, the Hindleys began Food Done It? locally, but were eager to bring the tour to other towns. They are hoping to expand and add a new town and mystery soon.

“The first time we went outside of Patchogue, we said it has to be Huntington and we love our Huntington partners,” Kevin said. “We’re really proud to be in Huntington.”

The Hindleys found Huntington has the most exotic cuisine of all the towns, offering inspectors a variety of flavors and atmospheres. Elizabeth feels, there is something about Huntington, that you can’t quite put your finger on, but something is extraordinary about the town. Food Done It? hopes to bring inspectors to hidden gems, that they may have never heard of but will walk away loving.

“We both love to cook and are foodies,” Kevin said. “We put together menus of food that are really high quality, delicious and pretty universal. We try to make it so that by the end of the tour, you feel like you’ve eaten a full meal.”

Food Done It? hosts afternoon and evening tours Tuesday through Thursday, as well as tours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Tours cost $60 per person.

 

Food Done It?

Huntington, Babylon and Patchogue

631-438-1288

fooddoneit.com

Pair Brings Shared Working Space With a Killer View

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Founders, David Jakubowski and William Cody created Colony Workplaces to bring co-working to Huntington.

By Sophia Ricco

sricco@longislandergroup.com

Coworking has made its way to Huntington and it’s being led by Colony Workplaces, a collaborative office space that emphasizes community and prosperity.

This new term, “coworking”, means people working together in a shared space to allow creativity and collaboration to take place. Colony founders, David Jakubowski and William Cody witnessed a growing trend of shared work spaces and wanted to bring this outside of the city. They crafted their project for a year, opening Colony at the beginning of November.

“It’s not just a place to rent a desk, we’re creating a community here,” Cody said.

The environment coworking creates is crucial to its success, with a wide variety of businesses and people moving into Colony to work, it is sure to be a dynamic atmosphere. People who are starting or growing their business, will find many of their needs can be met through collaboration with other workers.

“That’s a big part of what coworking is,” Jakubowski said. “The more we can bring everyone together, the more happy and comfortable you are, the more you want to come and be with your colleagues in the office, the longer you’re going to stay.”

Colony goes by the motto, “Thrive at the hive.” This ties into their name and logo, that implies bees working hard for their honey, like those using the space will do. But in order for bees to do their best, they must be happy and work together.

“What we’ve tried to do is have calming colors to the wall, beautiful views, a fire pit outside, nice photos on the wall, good people around you,” Jakubowski said. “We’re creating a calm place to work.”

They plan on hosting fun events for the workers, like barbecues and Thursday Night football, to encourage sociability.

“It’s not all about work, it’s a work-life balance,” Cody said. “You want to be here, you get a lot of work done here but you also like your colleagues.”

For someone who works at home, Colony offers a professional and serene environment, with the benefit of making connections with others.

“They feel they’ve missed out on a lot of the office interaction,” Cody said. “Even though, these people may not be working for the same company, they miss the camaraderie.”

Colony’s expansive space offers common spaces, private offices and conference rooms.

For Cody and Jakubowski, finding the right space to host Colony was critical. They didn’t want to settle for an office building or somewhere in the middle of town, where parking can be a nightmare. When they found this space by the waterfront, they knew it was a home run, with beautiful views, restaurants close by, and a parking lot.

“We wanted a serene setting in an off the beat and path location, where people could still have convenience,” Jakubowski said.

Colony offers common rooms, with spaces for quiet work, socialization, or a cup of coffee on a comfy seat. There are two private offices, giving workers more isolation with the ability to still venture into the common rooms. If someone is hosting a large group, there are two professional conference rooms equipped with TVs.

All of these spaces are adaptable and changeable, based on client needs. A person may only need half an office, so Colony will place another worker in there that has an alternating schedule. This allows them to keep their privacy, in a more cost-effective way.

“Someone asked us to take the meeting room out and put five desks in, we have the flexibility to convert anything… Things are going to evolve as we move along, we’re flexible to that,” Jakubowski said.

Colony offers a variety of packages to fit client’s needs and schedules. If a person works full-time at an office, but is working on a book or business on the side, they will have the off-hours package that allows them access outside of normal business hours.

“We always think creatively, if it works for you, it works for us,” Cody said.

Those interested in testing out the space can get access from Colony for a week to see if it’s the right fit for them. Colony expects to see a variety of businesses join them, from small start-ups to large corporations relocating their employees.

“We cover everything, electricity, internet, coffee, cable/TV, it’s all taken care of,” Jakubowski said. “It decreases your stress, because you just come in and start working, you don’t have to worry.”

Cody and Jakubowski plan to expand Colony to other towns on Long Island, but for now are focusing on their space by the sea.

“The view really is everything,” Cody said. “The way we designed this space is that no matter where you are in the hive, you’re gonna be looking at the harbor.”

Colony Workplaces

133 New York Avenue, Huntington

631-683-4140

colonyworkplaces.com