The Olives are Prepared!

November 12, 2006 We have prepared our olives using the local recipe. After the olives started to look a little puckered Paola came over with the "finocchio selvatico" (wild fennel) and showed us what to do. It is very simple. You roll the olives between your palms to clean them and then put them in the jar. You peel about 1/2 an orange and 1/4 lemon, cut the peel into medium size pieces and add to the jar. The fennel (stock--it is the thin green piece in the photo) is cut into 1/2 inch pieces and added to the jar. Then you add 2 cloves of garlic (cut in half). Then about a handful of "sale grosso" (like rock salt). You shake the jar once a day and leave it for about 20 days or until the insides are dark. Not quite sure how long you can store them that way, but since we only have 2 kilos I'm sure Larry will have them eaten before they go bad! I do know that you leave them in the jar until you want to eat some and you just take those out, wash them off and add oil and whatever spices you want.



The next day, I prepared the ones from Felice's trees. Many had turned from green to a light red, but by the next day the salt had changed them to a shade of black!




Paola also brought us another "dolce." This time it was an apple torta (cake). The cake part was similar to pound cake, but not as sweet. The apples are sliced very thin and placed on top of the cake. It was very good and was completely eaten by the next day! Today I am taking her some chocolate chip cookies that I made!