Squash Fritters with Garlic Yogurt and Crispy Sage
& dealing in the golden-green currency of olive oil
In today’s newsletter, I’m sharing the recipe for squash fritters: light, crispy, and paired with garlicky yogurt and crispy sage, they’re irresistible. This recipe was created for Honest Toil, and alongside the recipe, I’ll be sharing the unexpected story of how founders Juli and Tom stumbled into olive farming and ended up creating not only one of the coolest olive oil brands around, but a beautiful community in the town of Kyparissia, Greece.
When Juli and Tom, founders of Honest Toil, first stepped onto the sunbaked soil of Kyparissia over 15 years ago, they couldn’t have imagined that olive oil would become the axis around which their lives turned. Young and curious, they had come to Greece seeking adventure, not the slow rhythms of farming, yet when they came across a plot of land with beautiful olive trees and a community steeped in the practices of working with them, they jumped in. Olive farming in Greece is more than a livelihood, it is a ritual that gives structure to the years of families and farmers across the country. Pruning in the spring, tending to the olives in summer, and gathering every cousin, sibling, parent, and child for the harvest each autumn, these cycles link them to the land and to one another.
Juli and Tom quickly learned that properly nurturing olive trees demands care, respect, and knowledge. As the days became years, they learned to listen, watch, and soak up wisdom passed on from kind neighbours about how to take care of their trees and harvest their fruit in the best possible way. The olive press, a community hub, became the source of many of these foundational lessons. Like most farmers, Juli and Tom entrusted their fruit to the local millers, or Press Masters as Juli affectionately calls them, whose skill determines the very soul of the final product. Up to 70% of an oil’s quality rests with these millers; they are stewards of the transformation from olive to oil and they showed Juli and Tom how to treat their olives in order to extract a beautiful, clean, peppery oil. And for the miller’s work and wisdom, a portion of the milled oil is all that ever changes hands.
As Juli and Tom strengthened their bond with the region and its people, Honest Toil began to grow and become more deeply woven into the local economy. They developed relationships with other small, local farmers, offering to purchase oil from these neighbours and sell it to their international customer base. These exchanges were a relief to the locals, whose hard work is too often overshadowed when their oil is purchased and blended with many others by multinational corporations. Instead, Honest Toil champions the origins of every bottle and honours the hands that made it possible.
Like the local millers, among Juli and Tom’s circle of friends and family, their oil serves as currency. When they need a favour or visit a friend, a bottle of their golden-green oil is what they offer and it is always warmly received. In this way, their wealth of olive oil has become a currency of care, flowing generously to nourish both bodies and relationships. Today, Honest Toil can be found in the UK, Budapest, and Berlin, places where Tom and Juli have roots of their own. The growth of their business is flowing organically and Juli and Tom are along for the ride, leaning into the natural rhythm of its unfolding and fully enjoying the unique lifestyle and community it offers them.
When Juli asked me to create a recipe using Honest Toil, I was all in. Truthfully, I cook and bake with olive oil every day. Light, crispy, and always served alongside garlicky yogurt or tzatziki, keftedes (fritters) are heavenly and felt like a no-brainer. In Greece, they’re most commonly made with zucchini (kolokithokeftedes), but, in theory, they can be made with any fruit or vegetable. Here, they’re given a winter spin with squash and warm spices, then lightly fried in olive oil and served alongside thick, garlicky yogurt and crispy sage.
