Well, it’s been a few weeks since my adventure in olive picking took place.

The pickling process is all finished now and I can finally put the olives in jars.

I use salt water to cure my olives. By soaking the olives in salt water, the bitterness slowly leeches out of the olives, leaving palatable olives to eat. Before the olives are cured, they look nice and smell OK but they are so bitter. How bitter? Well, if you will concede that coffee is a bitter product, I would say that on a 10 point scale that coffee would rate a number 2 while the humble olive would rate 8 or 9.

Over the years of pickling olives I have found no definite formula with regard to salt, water and olives. Some years I get lots of olives, some years less. Some years most of my olives are green while other years I have mostly black olives. I try to think of the first olives that were accidentally cured by somehow landing in a puddle of sea water, and also how some brave soul decided to try those olives. The point is that salty water eventually cures olives of their bitterness.

As the olives are now cured, I season them with lemon, vinegar, salt water, herbs, garlic and olive oil. Again, I use no recipe but rather have fun and play.

And you know what? They taste pretty good. Sure, they’re not the most beautiful looking olives out there but they more than make up for that with their personality.

I don’ know if this batch of olives will last us the whole year (until next year’s olive picking), but we’ll be sure to enjoy them until they run out.