It's fine for your spaghetti with clam sauce, your ratatouille, your paella valenciana. But pastries? Cakes? Cookies? Don't they fall apart? Don't they taste peculiarly of olive oil?

It's an old story -- you've heard it before, and not just from me -- but it's coming around again. Predictably, just as U.S. specialty markets begin to trumpet the arrival of fresh new-harvest, extra virgin olive oil comes the warning that it ain't what ...

The end-of-the-year celebrations in Italy last from Christmas Eve all the way to Epiphany on Jan. 6, when La Befana, the good witch, brings toys to virtuous children and lumps of coal to naughty ones.