Olives: a love story

Once upon a time, I did not like olives. I’d like to say that this was a long time ago, in a far off land. But, if I’m telling the truth, this was really only about a year ago, roughly 600 miles away on the East Coast. I had just remotely purchased my first home and my mom wanted to take me out to celebrate. The outing served a dual purpose: celebrating my big-girl milestone and saying farewell to one of my favorite hometown watering holes, Easton Wine Project.

We ordered a few glasses of wine and the Jumbo Pretzel with Charcuterie and Cheese–my favorite item on the menu. Like any good cheese and charcuterie board, this board boasts an array of meat and cheeses and complimenting bits and bobs, like nuts and fruits. What separates this board from others is that the array of meats and cheeses are arranged within the nooks of a giant, warm, soft, salty pretzel and served with beer cheese for dipping. I love this menu item, but believed at the time that I did not love the kalamata olives that punctuated the meaty cheesy display. 

Usually, I’d consume this board with friends and, invariably, I could depend on someone else to munch the olives. On this particular day, it was just me and my mother, who sadly dislikes olives. I quietly said to myself, “The only thing worse than olives is food waste,” and bravely braced myself to try to choke down as many of the little, slimy purple blobs as I could manage. I popped the first into my mouth and, to my surprise, enjoyed it. I ate a second, to ensure my first taste experience wasn’t a fluke. Then I ate a third, and another, and another, until I’d cheerfully eaten every olive on the board. As of that fateful day, I really liked olives.

My like grew to love and soon I found myself seeking out olives to nosh as often as I could. Now, there’s truly no end to what sort of olive I will enjoy. Stuffed olives are delightful: there’s pimento stuffed, jalapeno stuffed, and garlic stuffed. My personal favorite is a bleu cheese stuffed olive. They can be green, black, or purple. I will gladly eat any color or variety. On a pizza, they’re particularly delightful. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! In fact, one of my local pizzerias does a white pizza with olives that I’m particularly smitten with. If you like olives even half as much as I do, you must try Three Fires Bianca pizza. It’s a wood-fired pizza topped with a white sauce, mozzarella, a more-than-generous scattering of green olives, basil, garlic, and chili flake. This was one of several pizzas that I picked up the first time that I ever tried Three Fires. Before grabbing my pizzas, I’d already picked out a nice red wine to compliment the meaty, red-sauced pizzas in my order: because there’s few things I love more than pairing wine and pizza. The olive pizza was the weird outlier that I was just planning to try on a whim; since, apparently, I now liked olives and had actually never tried them on a pizza before this point. When I went into Three Fires to pay for my pizzas, the gentleman at the counter and I got chit-chatting and he casually mentioned that the Bianca pizza pairs great with red wine. I tried it when I got home and, let me tell you friend, it’s sort of life changing. As I’m typing this up, it’s early morning, the sun isn’t even up yet, and I’m suddenly craving a Bianca pizza and a nice glass of red. 

The problem with loving olives on pizza so much is that most pizza places aren’t open super early in the morning or in the middle of the night: and you never know when an olive craving will hit. So, I try to keep my house well stocked with olives. Sure, I love fancy ones, and will graciously accept olives as a gift any time. But I’m not above just grabbing a jar from the grocery store for my personal enjoyment. (My favorite brand is Lindsay. Their organic olives never disappoint.) 

I also kind of love those little snacking pouches of olives. Don’t yuck my yum when I tell you that the main appeal of olives-in-a-pouch is that I can throw them in my purse and take them anywhere. A craving could strike at any moment and it’s important to be prepared; especially if you’re out running errands or going on a long car ride. Nobody likes me when I’m hangry; I don’t even like myself. For snacking olives on the go, Freestyle offers a pretty delicious option. Their olives come in three varieties: Garlic and Lemon Green Olives, Hot and Spicy Green Olives, and Kalamata with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. While all of these options are delicious, and they’ve become an absolute go-to snack for me, I will say that these ‘pitted’ olives often have remnants of pit remaining in each pack; at least in my experience. They taste so good and they’re such a convenient grab and go munchie that I try not to mind. However, I’ll be the first to say that it’s annoying as heck to bite into a supposedly pitted olive and experience that awful cracking sensation of a partial pit shattering between your teeth. It’s annoying enough that I’m seriously considering losing my brand loyalty and giving Oloves a try. 

My favorite olive snack isn’t so much an olive itself as it is an olive product–which sounds kind of yucky when I say it like that, but stick with me for a minute. Trader Joe’s sometimes has these fried olive bites in the frozen food section. (And we all know the frozen food section at Trader Joe’s is next-level; let’s not pretend otherwise for even a moment.) They look like whole olives, but upon inspection they’re not. I let this disappoint me the first time that I tried this product, so be forewarned and don’t let it disappoint you. These are basically olive-shaped balls consisting of olive-bits and flavorful breading that envelope a cream-cheese center. They’re easy as sin to make: just remove them from your freezer, put them on a baking tray, and pop them into your heated oven for the suggested amount of time. Are these the perfect at-home, cozy, warm olive snack? Who’s to say. But, in my opinion: yes, they are. 

If I’m out to eat, my new favorite place to get olives is downtown at Copper Spoon. They offer an appetizer of warm marinated olives with orange, thyme, and garlic. They serve baguettes so that you can sop up all of the flavorful, briney oil that’s left behind. It’s a truly, deeply spiritual experience. I can’t recommend this menu item highly enough. I wrote about it previously on my blog post about Copper Spoon, so give it a read if you haven’t yet! 

As for recipes I cook at home with olives, my go-to is by Food52’s Emma Laperruque. She creates Big Little Recipes for Food52, so these recipes always utilize a limited number of ingredients making them both relatively affordable and easy. Her recipe for Olive-Brined Chicken with Garlicky Croutons and Parsley is simply one of those recipes that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Like the smarty-pants she is, she brines the chicken in olive juice. This imparts flavor and does a lot of the heavy lifting in regards to seasoning; but it also means that both the olives and their brine get utilized in a single recipe, so there’s no waste. Don’t sleep on this recipe. It’s a winner and, amongst olive lovers, a total crowd pleaser. I’ve cooked it for people on the fence regarding olives and they too have enjoyed it, because warm, schmaltzy olives and fatty, garlicky croutons are easy things to fall in love with. 

While our taste buds definitely play a strong role in how we perceive food, it’s ultimately our brain that decides whether or not we like something. Just because, at one time, you disliked a food doesn’t mean that you still dislike it. People change their minds all the time. So, if you think you don’t like olives, I urge you to try them again with the knowledge that minds change. Tastes change. People change. People grow and, sometimes, they grow into people who love olives.