Go for the gold: Try this year’s gold medal
winner in the Tuscan olive oil category.

Tenuta Cafaggio is located in Impruneta, the Tuscan hill town between the valleys of the Greve and Ema Rivers that is famous for its terracotta. The local clay is imbued with valuable minerals necessary to create the highest-quality terracotta products. During the Renaissance, the rich and powerful Medici family used Impruneta terracotta to decorate their palace gardens.

The earth evidently creates some magic in olives as well. Hand-picked Frantoio, Moraiolo and Leccino olives are blended by Tenuta Cafaggio to create an extra virgin olive oil of low acidity. A .500 liter/16.9 ounce bottle of the Cafaggio Extra Virgin Olive Oil New Harvest 2008/2009 is $42.00, and would make a nice gift for an olive oil connoisseur.

• Learn the difference between Frantoio, Moraiolo, Leccino and other olive cultivars in our Olive & Olive Oil Glossary.
• Read more about extra virgin olive oil.
• Learn how to taste and evaluate olive oil.

Today is National Oyster Day, so feast on a few. Oysters are chock full of protein and are low in calories. Oysters on the half shell make a great first course with Champagne or Chablis. Buy the largest, freshest oysters you can find and shuck them right before serving. Serve them with fresh lemon wedges. Very fresh oysters need nothing more (in fact, we don’t even use the lemon wedges!), but you can make mignonette sauce (there’s a recipe in our Oyster Glossary) or cocktail sauce by mixing ketchup with prepared (bottled) grated horseradish like Gold’s (find it in the grocer’s refrigerator case).

• Read about the different types of oysters, in our Oyster Glossary.
• Check out our review of Willapa Oysters, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week and our favorite oyster indulgence.
• Take a look at more of our favorite seafood items.

PRIZE #1: Parents, people on the go or people who deal with groups. You’ll want to enter to win GoPicnic meals. These attractive and convenient boxed meals are made of individual fun snacks such as tortilla chips and salsa, hummus and pita chips, tuna and crackers, edamame (soy bean snacks), almonds and a sweet treat (such as dried apricots, Mrs. Mays Nut Crunch or a Larabar)—all totally portable. More than 20 choices including gluten free, vegetarian, kosher and halal. Great for travel, keeping a healthy food stash at work, meetings and general grab & go.

• Read our review of Go Picnic meals.

PRIZES #2, 3 & 4: Calorie counters. You’ll want to enter to win one of 3 gift baskets from Tree Top Trim. Each 60-calorie, 8-ounce can contains one whole fruit serving plus nutrients that naturally help curb the appetite and promote a healthy metabolism. Flavors of this functional beverage include Kiwi Strawberry, Mango Peach, Pomegranate Blackberry and Tangerine Pineapple. Find out more about Tree Top Trim.

Three winners will receive gift baskets of
Tree Top Trim: low calorie energy in three fruit flavors. Photo by Corey Lugg | THE NIBBLE.

• Enter the Gourmet Giveaway! Simply give us your email (for the purpose of prize drawing only—privacy guaranteed) by 6 a.m. ET, Monday, August 10, 2009.

This dried pineapple will satisfy the most demanding sweet tooth (photo Emily Chang | © THE NIBBLE.

Dried fruit is a time-honored backpackers’ staple and children’s snack. It wins hearts for its nutritional value and sturdiness. It can add a burst of flavor to salads and baked goods. But it doesn’t always satisfy a sweet tooth.

Sunsweet’s new dried Philippine Pineapple changes that perspective. It’s like pineapple candy with serious nutritional benefits: one cup of pineapple delivers a whopping 94% of the recommended daily value of Vitamin C.

The pineapple bites have excellent texture and manage to avoid the pitfalls of other dried pineapple. They’re neither stringy nor chewy, but are light and juicy—moist and almost candied.

A citrus undernote balances the sweetness, making this dried pineapple ideal for both savory and sweet dishes and for spicing up your favorite snack mix—as well as for snacking out of the bag.

Sunsweet attributes the difference to ideal growing conditions in the Philippines, at elevations of 2,000 to 3,000 feet, where cooler temperatures add more moisture to the finished product, versus pineapple grown in hotter climates and/or at lower elevations.

Here’s more about it.

• Read the history of lasagne.
• Check out this recipe for a dessert lasagne.
• Here’s a recipe for a rice pesto “lasagne”—there are no noodles. Layers of rice are used instead.