Free Murder at the Cooking School: Book 7 of the Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series by Dianne Harman Page B

mentioned the first
night, we will take a field trip to a nearby farm with an olive grove and a
small boutique olive oil processing plant following lunch,” Chef Bianchi
announced at the beginning of lunch. “If you want to go, please meet me at the
hotel entrance at 2:00. We’ll return to the castle around 4:00. If you’ve never
seen how olive oil is made, I think you’ll find it interesting.”
    At 2:00 Kelly joined a
small group of students at the hotel entrance. Several of the students had
preferred to spend the warm afternoon by the swimming pool. Kelly patted
Caesar’s head and told him she’d be back in two hours as she got into the van.
She sensed a hint of sadness in his eyes as she boarded.
    *****
    A short time later Alberto drove the
van up a lane lined with olive trees on each side as far as the eye could see.
At the end of the lane were two buildings. The one on the left was clearly the
commercial building where the olive oil was pressed. It was painted white and
in big red letters were the words, “Rizzo Olive Oil.” The one on the right was
a large stone house with purple blooming wisteria covering its sides. Heavy
wooden garage doors were on the left side of the front of the house. Next to
the garage, curving steps led up to the wooden front door. On the left side of
each of the steps brightly colored blooming flowers trailed over and down large
terra cotta vases.
    That’s one of the warmest,
most welcoming homes I’ve ever seen, Kelly thought. If Giovanni was
having an affair with Signora Nardo, I can’t believe Signora Rizzo knew about
it. The house speaks of happiness.
    The van pulled up in front
of the commercial building, and the students got out and entered the building.
The manager of the olive oil company met them at the door. “ Buongiorno or good afternoon,” he said. Welcome to Rizzo Olive Oil. Today I will be
showing you the steps we take in making olive oil. Naturally, we have a much
larger plant in Florence where we make the majority of the olive oil we sell;
however, you will have a chance to see the process here. We begin with cleaning
the olives. All rocks and sand must be removed, or they will damage a hammer
mill like ours and will also quickly wear out the oil separator.
    “Next, we will watch the
olives as they are ground into a paste which helps release the oil from them.
Then we mix the paste until small oil droplets combine into bigger ones.
Although there are other steps that are optional such as additional processing
or putting in additives, the last step is where the oil is separated from the
vegetable water and solids. I’m sure you’ve all heard the term ‘first press.’
If we were still using presses, this would be the first press, but now it’s
done with the help of a centrifuge which separates the oil, water, and the
solids separately. After the oil has been separated, it’s put into tanks or
barrels. At this facility we use barrels, but in Florence we use large
stainless steel tanks. An additional step is sometimes done where we filter the
oil. Those are the basic steps you’ll be seeing during our tour. If you have
any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me as we walk through the plant.”
    Although Kelly found the
tour fascinating, she was more interested in what the mindset was of a woman
whose husband had supposedly been the lover of a woman who had just been
murdered. She wondered if Signora Rizzo knew about the rumors. When the
tour had ended and the manager had escorted the students into the gift shop, so
they could buy olive oil souvenirs and have some wine and crackers, she slipped
out a side door. Kelly had no idea what she was looking for, but something told
her to stay in the shadows of the olive trees, and see if she could find out
anything.
    She walked towards the
rear of the house and stopped a moment to look at the view in front of her.
Olive trees covered the landscape for as far as she could see. It presented a
classic snapshot of