I'm discovering more & more that I enjoy olives. We're not talking run of the mill, sliced black olives from Safeway. Not a nasty canned green olive with a foreign pimento wedged inside it. I mean whole, with slight slick of olive oil, pit intact olives. The past few weeks I've had various evenings out that included tapas of caprese, small bowls of olives and either a good glass of wine or a Ketel & tonic.
Simplistically briny, spicy, garlicky or even bitey when stuffed with blue cheese. I had a certain satisfaction from eating a larger green olive and pinging the little pit into the silver bowl that comes with the tapas dish.
More commonly, people are introduced to olives on pizza. Burned and shriveled, paired with equally unappetizing accoutrements that are over-cooked. That, or in a cheesy movie, where they are being stired around a martini glass by an international spy or some floozie attempting to be alluring.
Eating olives in their more organic state is a new experience, and worth trying if you're only foray so far has been when dining at Pizza Hut. Health note: olives are dense monounsaturated fat, vitamin E, iron and dietary fiber.
