Oliving It Up With Il Buco's Donna Lennard at the NYC Food Film Festival

La Raccolta (The Harvest) is a short documentary that explores the olive oil making process in a small community in Umbria which is deeply proud of its distinctly flavorful oil. The film introduces us to four adorably old, incredibly passionate olive-pickers, all of whom are old hands at the harvest. Chances are you will feel palpably concerned for these octogenarians as they climb flimsy ladders to reach the tops of the incredibly picturesque trees. Filmmaker Donna Lennard is otherwise known to New York as the owner of popular downtown restaurant il Buco. Her film premieres at the NYC Food Film Festival tonight.

Sara Davis: Are you Italian? Or you just speak Italian?
Donna Lennard: Not at all, I just speak Italian. And you know, I lived with an Italian man for ten years, I’ve spent a lot of time in Italy, and I have an Italian restaurant…

SD: Right. So, historically what was your relationship with olive oil?
DL: Before the film?

SD: Yeah, when you were growing up.
DL: I think growing up I had no idea about olive oil.

SD: Really?
DL: Yes, when I was growing up it was like… safflower oil in the kitchen.

SD: Oh, I see.
DL: I don’t know about you, but for my generation, growing up in Westchester, my mother always used safflower oil.

SD: Because she was trying to be health-conscious?
DL: Yeah. You know, now my mother cooks only with olive oil and has been doing so for many, many years. But I mean, I think in her generation people really didn’t think about it in that way. And I think people still don’t really understand the really wonderful qualities that olive oil has.

SD: What was this film about for you?
DL: I think it’s about… the loss that’s been experienced all over the world, with the way things are being produced, and how they used to be produced. And the celebration of this culture of doing things in a natural way, of having natural resources and using them to sustain ourselves.

SD: Like a kind of traditional sustainability?
DL: Yes. I mean, there is modernization of course, but in Umbria the olives are still picked by hand because of the way the trees grow, the way the land is, and the type of olive -- it’s a very tiny, hard olive that needs to be pulled. It doesn’t fall so easily from the tree.

SD: The movie suggests that the people who harvest these olives might be a dying breed. Do you think that’s true?
DL: Yes, definitely. People have modernized and kids are growing up and they’re becoming computer software programmers. It’s not the same as it was years ago, the value on it is not the same.

SD: So, what do you have planned for the Food Film Festival Screening?
DL: We’re going to to do a little bruschetta tasting. It’ll be fun, and very relaxed.

SD: So you’re going to grill up some bread?
DL: Yeah, maybe we’ll have some chopped tomatoes and basil also…we haven’t totally planned it yet.

SD: Can you think of any simple recipes involving olive oil that PAPERMAG readers could do on their own? Nothing too fancy?
DL: Well for me, the easiest recipe is just to have gorgeous tomatoes with a little basil, salt and olive oil. You could add some mozzarella. I also like ricotta cheese with olive oil, salt and pepper.

La Raccolta screens tonight at 8:50 p.m. part of the NYC Food Film Festival at the Water Taxi Beach.