Food I'm Eating: Green Olives (March 2017)

I've been making black olives at home for the past few years now, making batches whenever able to get my hands on good olives. I'd never tried green olives before, but this year I had access to a tree that still had green fruit in January, so I thought I'd give it a go. They are now done. The process was much the same as for black olives, but I started with a plain water soak for about ten days, changing the water every day, before switching to brine with a change every three or four days. I finished them with just a little bay, lemon juice, and white wine vinegar added toward the end, mostly the vinegar. I've always brined the black olives from the start and finished them with garlic, lemon, and rosemary. Both methods have resulted in some pretty tasty olives. Green olives seem to finish more quickly than black olives, suggesting the ripe fruit has more of the bitter compounds that make unprocessed olives inedible.

Food I'm Eating: Curing Green Olives (January 2017)

I've cured ripe black olives in the past, olives from the tree in our yard and from a neighbor's tree, but never tried to cure green olives before. Usually olives are starting to ripen here as early as October, depending on variety, and nearly all are fully ripe by December. I had access this year to a number of trees at a winery tasting room where I work part-time. One of the trees has green fruit even now. I don't know what variety it is, but I decided to try green olives.

Recipes for curing black olives with brine always start with salt water from day one. Most green olive recipes, however, recommend soaking the olives in fresh water to start and then finishing them in brine. Recommended water soaks seem to range from four days to a month, with many recipes recommending 10 days. I'll probably seek a middle path and try waiting about two weeks before switching to brine. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, large ripe olives from another tree at the tasting room were already looking good in early November. Those olives are now finishing in brine with a touch of vinegar, lemon juice, rosemary and several crushed cloves of garlic. They are just about ready (below).