Olive me

Three months, two food service containers, one stockpot and lord only knows how much salt later, ten pounds of olives are ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

These puppies took a fair amount longer than our last batch. But then, they're a fair bit larger than those others as well. I procured these from Penna Gourmet Olives, thanks to a tipster in the comments from last year's post. Penna is based in Orland, in the northern Central Valley. That puts them 158 miles from here, which puts them a little outside the comfort zone of hardcore locavores. I figure, these olives have been living in our house for three months, and that makes them as local as it gets.

Acting on feedback left by another (frankly rude) self-purported Italian olive grower, I upped the ante on salt content in the brine to try to stave off the scourge of mold. Using double the amount recommended in the previous version did little to keep the crud away, though it did make the olives inedibly salty. Hence, I had to go through a few cycles with less salt, and at least one with no salt to try to bring them back into a happy place.

Finally, this week they were both sufficiently de-bitter-ized and not tongue-burningly salty. Let the seasoning begin. A fistful of chili pepper flake, a sprinkle of black peppercorns, some lovely fragrant bay leaves, a fagot of finely matchsticked lemon rind and a very healthy slosh of extra virgin olive oil should just do the trick.

I'm playing it safe: I'm keeping these babies in the fridge, turning them twice daily until I can offload them or consume them. Take that, mister mold.

And so ends another lengthy, tedious and fraught food venture chez Hedonia. DPaul gets his stockpot back, I can sleep at night without dreams of encroaching mold and we can finally give our friends their Christmas gifts.