Professional Services
Alina Lawrence provides training and consulting services to the food industry, including chefs, restaurants, cooking schools and importers. She trains food professionals to taste and evaluate olive oil, evaluates olive oil for restaurants and importers, develops olive oil tasting events and coursework, and serves on olive oil tasting and judging panels.
Alina Lawrence has developed Professional Olive Oil Tasting 101, a hands-on training course designed to teach food professionals the fundamentals of olive oil sensory analysis and empower them to make better informed purchasing decisions. Held at your place of business, this course teaches practical concepts and skills that can be put to use immediately.
Chefs and restaurateurs wishing to showcase premium extra virgin olive oils to their customers work with Alina to develop Single Varietal Olive Oil Tasting & Food Pairing events. Alina meets with the chef and staff for a professional development session to evaluate and select olive oils and discuss a pairing menu, then serves as chief olive oil educator at the event.
Professional Olive Oil Tasting 101
Learn to taste and evaluate olive oil like the professional do so you can choose only the highest quality olive oils for your kitchen. All good olive oil starts with premium, fresh-picked olives. When processed correctly, these olives result in award-winning olive oils. Quite frequently, however, the production process becomes flawed and the resulting olive oils display taste defects that render them unsuitable for culinary use. Workshop participants will taste and evaluate 5 top quality extra virgin olive oils side by side with flawed oils to learn to identify both positive and negative attributes of olive oil. Taste defects covered include rancid, fusty, musty and muddy sediments. Workshop runs 90 minutes.
Single Varietal Olive Oil Tasting & Food Pairings
Delight your guests with an event that showcases your tasting menu paired with ultra-premium, single varietal, extra virgin olive oils. Alina Lawrence works with chefs to select the olive oils best suited for the chef's dishes, then takes on the role of chief olive oil educator at the event to help guests more fully enjoy their experience.
Each single varietal olive oil possesses unique flavor profiles and organoleptic properties that vary in intensity from mild to robust. In most cases, oils with mild flavor profiles do not pair well with the same foods as robust oils. During the professional development session, Alina will give a primer on olive oil intensity and teach you how to highlight flavor profiles by matching oil intensity with different types of food. During the olive oil and food pairing event, Alina will educate guests about the chosen olive oils and guide them through a tasting prior to enjoying the chef’ tasting menu. Includes a 60 minute professional development session and 2 hour event.
