image from Everyday Pantry

I love olives.  They’re my favorite food.  I have lots of favorite foods, and I’m ok with it.  Everyone keeps telling me that if you have two kids there’s no way you can love one more than another, and that’s how I am with food.  Every food is my favorite, unless it’s onions.  I hate onions.

Every Christmas, my Gramps gives me the biggest jar of green olives he can find.  It’s my favorite present, I wait for it all year.  It’s not like I can’t go out and buy my own jar of olives, I do that all the time.  It’s that someone else knows of my love for the olive, or so we’ll have extras for the rest of the family after the appetizers have been set out and the olives mysteriously disappear.  In his defense, he loves them too, in his martini.  He’s a badass grandpa.

A few years ago, “olive bars” were all the rage.  I heard about one and couldn’t believe it.  It would be heaven.  Actually, it is heaven.  I’ve had some of the best olives I’ve ever tasted (nothing beats what I ate in Italy) from the olive bar at Whole Foods.  My first trip to Whole Foods, I saw a sample olive set-up.  They were spicy, in amazingly pure oil and simply one of the best things I had ever put into my mouth.  I then saw the price, $11 for less than a pound of olives.  I could beat myself up for not buying them, even if it would be one of the most ridiculous purchases ever.  Every time we go through Whole Foods, I look for those olives and they’re never there.  I’d now pay that $11 for them, probably even $20.  They are that amazing.

Best of the best – olive recipes:

Hot Olives! (warm olives with lemon and spices)

Pioneer Woman’s Olive Cheese Bread (made with cream cheese instead of mayo)

Garlic & Hot Pepper Oil Linguine (made with green olives)