Like a Dirty Martini. Extra Dirty. Without the Martini…

Back when I fancied myself a writer and a thinker (ha!), I wanted to write a book on similarities and trends in people’s palettes.  I found that the folks that hated olives also hated coconut, avocados and other lovely things that I couldn’t imagine not eating.  It was like a package deal or something.  While my theories have yet to be tested on a larger scale, I definitely do believe that your palette can be trained to taste and eventually love foods that you may not like right now.

For me, one of the foods that I’ve come around to over the years are green olives.  I’ve always adored black olives – I was the little kid who put the canned ones on my fingers like a fool, only to eat them off – but absolutely abhorred green olives.  In a moment of revelatory tastetastiness (sure, that’s a word), I had olive tapenade at a local tapas restaurant as an amuse bouche.  The chef served it with plantain chips – a fun spin on chips and salsa.  Needless to say, I was hooked from that moment on.

Olive tapenade is so incredibly easy to make, and versatile as not only an appetizer, but also as a marinade and sauce.  It keeps well in the fridge, and can be made from such common pantry ingredients – it’s a good appetizer to add to the mix without adding any extra cooking time.  Goodness.  I use a combo of lemon and red wine vinegar to keep things bright, and the saltiness of the olives and capers makes this a lovely treat.  This recipe is so close to vegan – just leave out the solitary anchovy and you are in business.  For the rest of you kids, make it the traditional way, because you should be eating more anchovies.  They are delicious.