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Day 067/365 - Castelvetrano

We stopped by Heinen's to pick up a few groceries. It seems every grocery store has an olive bar. "Insert food type" bars must be lucrative, coaxing shoppers with a melange of scents to scratch that olfactory itch and part with a few more coins.

At the olive bar, there were at least a dozen containers, each with olives smiling in their little pools. The $8.99/lb price tag was a little steep for a random purchase. Mrs. Id responded excitedly, "C'mon, they're olives! What could possibly go wrong?" and justified that being a bar, I could choose how ever many I wanted.

These bright green guys caught my eye so I read the label: Castelvetrano green olives. Huh?

Yes, I drank the Kool-Aid. I quickly jiggled a plastic container loose from its tower and plucked these six gems from their bath.

Seconds after we arrived home, the olives were poured into a bowl. I took a bite and was surprised they tasted like, well, olives.

Of course they tasted like olives. Perhaps I should explain better. They tasted like those pitted black olives that I grew up with and stuck on each fingertip.

Had someone fed these olives to me with my eyes closed, I wouldn't have expected them to be green olives. I expect green olives to be a sour and briny leather. Instead, this was smooth, firm, and meaty, unlike the squishy texture of canned, pitted black olives.

I don't know if these olives truly are from Castelvetrano in Sicily. Where ever they come from, you're doing it right!

On a somber note, this bowl had grown to be my favorite dinner bowl but was shattered. *mourn* Nothing lasts forever.

- Cassaendra