I guess you can change that moniker from "Wisconsin's Rock Station" to "America's Rock Station."

Woodward rock station WAPL, licensed right here in Appleton, picked up the prestigious "Rock Station of the Year" award at the Marconi Award ceremony recently put on by the National Association of Broadcasters.  Nominated once before, the honor puts the medium-market station on top of other rock outlets in markets much larger than ours.

Congratulations to Joe Calgaro, Rick & Len, Elwood, Karla, Ross and the whole gang over at WAPL on their Marconi.  I can personally attest, it was well-deserved.

Gourmet, freshly bottled olive oils have certainly been en vogue in Northeast Wisconsin lately, with two prominent local purveyors selling high-end oils, vinegars and spices.  The Oilerie in Fish Creek, which bills itself as the first olive oil boutique in the country, has made a tidy little business for itself by offering a unique oil tasting experience in the bustling Door County community.

Recently, a new contender called The Olive Cellar opened up shop on Northland Avenue in Appleton, offering a similar tasting experience a little closer to home for Fox Cities residents.  I've purchased from both estabishments and am ready to make my pick for Northeast Wisconsin's best oil bar.

The Oilerie has many things going for it, to be sure.  They have a fantastic selection of flavored olive oils, balsamic vinegars, spices and lots more.  They are nestled in the Fish Creek area, one of my favorite Door County communities.  The service is friendly and helpful, assuming you hit the place during a slow time of year.  All the oils and vinegars are out and available for sampling, using small plastic cups for tasting.  When you purchase an oil or vinegar, the staff bottles your selection for you, seals it and wraps it. 

Each dark green bottle features a small brass tag tied on with gold elastic string, labeling the bottle.  While it makes a pretty presentation, I would recommend you take the tag and string off before you start using the bottle.  On our bottles from the Oilerie, any oil that may creep down the side of the neck of the bottle seems to interact with the string and create a sticky black paste.  Once you get it on your hands, it's hard to wash off and you may leave black smudge fingerprints all over your kitchen if you're not careful.  It took my girlfriend and I a while to figure out where we were picking up the black marks in the kitchen before noticing the neck of our bottle getting very dirty with the black mess.  If you go to The Oilerie, we would recommend going during off-peak times of the Door County tourist season.  During high-traffic times of the year, The tiny storefront at The Oilerie gets very claustrophobic and hard to shop.  You may also have to wait for bottling service if they are short-staffed.  Our first visit was in May of this year and the experience was much more pleasant than during the late summer.  The store itself is very sparsely decorated, and the parking lot shared with other shops is quite small and may be hard to navigate in and out during busy times of the year.

That said, the products we purchased at The Oilerie were fantastic.  I would particularly recommend the Fior Fiore Olive Oil, which is a light, buttery flavored olive oil that is great for bread dipping, drizzling over vegetables and other situations where you'd normally use butter.  The garlic olive oil is also good, as is their fire-roasted salsa and Curt's table spice (which is also available locally at Mary's Family Restaurant).  Prices are generally good for specialty, flavored oils.  The presentation of the bottles would make great gifts.  If you are in the Fish Creek area and the tourist traffic isn't too heavy, I wouldn't hesitate recommending a stop at The Oilerie.

The Olive Cellar, located in a strip mall on Northland Avenue between Richmond and Oneida Streets in Appleton, is a similar but very different experience in comparison to The Oilerie.  Access and parking is much easier, for certain, and the store is much larger, more open and much more aesthetically-pleasing at The Olive Cellar.  Not being in a tourist community, taking advantage of the tasting experience is much more personal and relaxing, even when the store is busier.  The size of the store and the Mediterannean-style decor makes a world of difference.  Also different, but pleasantly so in my opinion, is the availability of cubes of bread for sampling of the oils and vinegars.  According to The Oilerie's website, they do not offer bread for sampling because they "want you to be able to taste all of the subtle flavor nuances of each variety of olive."  Given the option to swig or finger the oil for tasting versus dipping a piece of bread, the latter makes for a much more accessible experience for those who may be buying oil in a boutique setting for the first time.  The selection at The Olive Cellar, though different than The Oilerie, is just as good if not better.  The number of oils and vinegars available for sampling and fresh bottling is pretty equivalent, and the staff bottles and seals your purchase the same way.  Rather than offering a brass tag on the bottle to denote the variety, The Olive Cellar puts a small sticker on the glass bottle.  Avoiding the mess the Oilerie's bottle seems to create, the bottles are the same size, shape and color.  The other difference between the two stores' bottles are in the cap.  The Oilerie features a pour spout that drizzles a small, narrow stream of oil, which makes it easy to pour out just as much oil as you need.  The bottles at The Olive Cellar feature a cap that doesn't have a built in pour spout, but a cork seal which seems to reseal better.  They do offer plug-in spouts as an optional purchase.

The oils at The Olive Cellar were all fantastic, and the variety available ensures you may walk away from your experience with more than one in tow.  The oils tasted fresh and the flavors were lively.  The garlic olive oil was of equal quality to The Oilerie, but prices across the board appeared a couple dollars cheaper.  They do offer more expensive items like aged balsamic vinegars that are well worth the extra dollars.  The bread samples makes all the difference when you spend some time there sampling everything they have to offer.  The Olive Cellar has a slightly different selection of auxiliary products than The Oilerie.  They did seem to offer more "gift" items including oil spray pumps, high-end cutting boards an ecclectic selection of edibles.  I would highly recommend the Roasted Garlic Champagne Mustard, which is fantastic on pretzels.  Samples were available of that the day we visited.

Overall, I would give a competitive edge to The Olive Cellar in Appleton.  The closer proximity to the Fox Cities aside, The Olive Cellar's lower prices, accessible tasting experience, easy access, and the much more open, inviting store gave them high marks in my book, even though I would give both stores equal marks in product quality.  Our second visit to The Oilerie was a notably uncomfortable experience because the store was so jammed up with customers.  If that had been our first visit, I doubt we would have purchased anything.  As I already knew what I was looking for, I was able to flag down a staff member and directly request what I wanted.  Left to discover their selection for the first time, I would have found myself more frustrated than I already was. 

The Olive Cellar has the olive oil boutique experience nailed, and I would recommend anyone who loves to cook take some time and give The Olive Cellar a shot.

Spend an extended amount of time in this area and notice certain trends emerge.

Not too long ago, there was the supermarket shuffle.  Festival Foods came and elbowed their way into an already crowded supermarket sector, filling a void left by Cub Foods closing up shop on Northland Avenue.  With Copps, Pick 'N Save, Walmart, Piggly Wiggly, Woodman's and other grocery stores all aiming for a piece of the figurative pie, I was convinced one of them would go down.  Ultimately, that didn't happen.

Next genre up for super-saturation?  The drug stores.  We've recently witnessed the advent of the ShopKo Express, compact little stores that look like the lovechild of a ShopKo and a Walgreens.  Two just recently opened their doors, one serving the East College Avenue corridor off Highway 441 and the other nestled behind the park-and-ride off Highway 41 and Ballard.  Folks who frequent ShopKo will feel right at home, to be certain, with all the look and feel of a ShopKo.  One supposed benefit would be the ability to run in for a bottle of NyQuil without the risk of leaving with a pair of new shoes and new dining room set.

Across the street from the ShopKo on Northland Avenue, demolition is almost complete on the site of a future Walgreens location, down the road from an existing Walgreens.  On the south side, a brand spanking new CVS Pharmacy is poised to open, casting its shadow on the empty shell of a Ford Pharmacy, relatively new itself.

Let it never be said that a prescription is hard to fill in this area.  Now if we could only convince one of the drug store chains to build one on the old, dilapidated K-Mart property on College Avenue...

According to their website, Beefeaters is a "British themed restaurant serving up classic pub dishes, with our own twist, as well as American favorites." Brought to the Valley by the same family that runs Good Company and Pullman's, Beefeaters is an eclectically-themed restaurant serving up fantastic food with plenty of British flair.

Gyros are one of my guilty pleasures, especially when they're done right. Unlike many places that serve "gyros" with thinly-sliced, pre-packaged meat, the gyros at The Greek Kafe aren't just big and tasty, they're sliced to order off a rotisserie. For lovers of Mediterranean cuisine, The Greek Kafe serves a menu of familiar favorites.

When you're looking for a tight menu of mouthwatering, gourmet subs at reasonable prices, you can do worse than Jimmy John's. The ever-expanding franchise of sub shops has had locations come and go in the Fox Cities over the past few years, most in weirdly inconvenient locations. The new branch at the corner of Richmond and Northland in Appleton is no exception.

Mi Pueblo opened up recently in the former East Appleton strip mall slot occupied by Los Compadres, between Gordman's and Walmart. Run by the same owner as Ashwaubenon's Los Magueyes restaurant, the newly-christened eatery offers a menu and price structure very similar to nearby Kimberly competitor El Azteca.

I dropped by over the lunch hour to try the $5.99 fajitas advertised in their window. The restaurant, having just opened, was not very busy but with recent publicity in the Post-Crescent and a prime location next to the heavily-shopped Walmart, traffic is bound to increase in the coming weeks.