Everybody that sits in our kitchen always wonders what's in all the bottles on the back counter. It's an old habit left over from my childhood where my Dad would have no less than eight different wine bottles of homemade hot and cold infused oils at the ready on the restaurant's cook line. "Mr. L", my Dad's professional moniker, drilled several rules into my head. Two big ones were: 1) "Hot pan + cold oil = foods won't stick" and 2) "Ingredients supply a flavor - a good oil enhances it." Those little morsels of knowledge along with the legendary, "Get that out of your mouth you schmuck!" have stuck with me like dried Irish oatmeal on a wooden floor.

As I recall, green bottles were cold infused oils and clear bottles were hot infused oils. Sloppy grease pencil labeling would tell us of its use: Beef, Lamb, Pork and Seafood. Each assembled by one of our Chefs with the ingredients given to him with precise instructions on the preparation methodology. Naturally, the inevitable would happen where 500 people decided on the same entrée so we'd have to quickly make up 5 more gallons of the stuff. Which at times was even more annoying than de-boning 500 chickens.

But in the end, a simple way to enhance the flavor of any meal is to accent (or drizzle) with infused oil.