Recycle Those Olives

Olives supreme! 

You’ve got people coming over to lounge in your backyard, enjoy the spring sunshine and share a bottle of wine.  The closest grocery store doesn’t stock anything exotic, or impressive…and goodness knows we all want to impress.  Yeah, you could bust out packaged this or that.

Nope.  You want to serve something impressive.  You got an hour or more before they show up?  I’ve got just the thing.

First, you trot down to the corner grocery and buy a jar of ordinary olives and a can of smoky almonds.  When you get home, you don’t do anything with the almonds but put them in a dish.  If you’re a real show-off, finely chop some parsley and sprinkle it lightly over the almonds.

Ah, but the olives are going for glory.  Here’s how:

Drain the whole jar of olives.  Pat them dry and put them in a bowl.  Very finely dice approximately a teaspoon or more of lemon, lime, or orange rind. I prefer lemon. The finer the dice, the better.  Into the bowl they go.  Next, finely dice a couple of garlic cloves.  They also go in the bowl of olives.  If you have capers, add a heaping spoonful.  If not, don’t worry.  Grate some pepper over the olive mélange, then drizzle with olive oil and toss until you’re satisfied everything is well distributed.  Don’t be modest with the olive oil.

Leave them for an hour or more.  I like to leave mine overnight.

The first comments from your guests are likely to be, “I love your olives!” followed shortly by, “Where did you get them?”

That’s the perfect lead-in for a story about your trip to Sicily, the flat tire on a back road, and how an aging olive farmer led you through the grove of gnarled and ancient trees, back to his stone farmhouse for wine and cheese, and how his equally aged wife ushered you into her kitchen and showed you the secret to curing good olives.

You’re not lying, you’re just embellishing slightly.  A good story always enhances the taste of the wine, and after all, a good host always entertains his guests, even if it leaves his wife a little confused, wondering who the hell you took to Sicily!  Just pass her the bowl of smoked almonds and tell the story about…