The Olive Count

I can't say that I never really liked olives before this trip because I had never eaten as olive.  I know I didn't like the remnant taste on the cheese after I removed one from a Bertucci's pizza even after I asked them not to put the olive on, so I figured that the olive itself couldn't be that appetizing, and that was that.

In Greece, I have had a more open mind about olives (and other foods, but still no onions or mayonnaise, not that the latter is an issue here), and so I tried my first olive on our first night.

We were eating in the Plaka, and it was a nice quite night.  Another couple near us ordered a lot of appetizers, and I found myself staring questioningly, until the gentleman (an ex-pat who just moved to Greece) and I struck up a conversation about the food.  They had ordered fried cheese with fresh lemon, tzatziki and black olives.  We ordered the same.  The olive had a strong flavor, and a weird spongy/pulpy texture which was somewhat unappetizing, and for half the time I ate the olive I kept trying to negotiate the pit, but I was determined.  The second one was by degree better and worse now that I knew what to expect, and I didn't look so silly trying to wrangle the pit.  And that was enough for me.  Randall, meanwhile, was enjoying them thoroughly.

The next afternoon as we lunched in Plaka, apparently still too close to the New Acropolis Museum, we were served "complementary" olives.  They looked scrawny and pallid by comparison to the previous night, as if to say, "the tourists will never know the difference".  Randall confirmed that they were not as good.  So, instead of having a bad olive and ruining my good intentions, I had what I thought was a brillant idea and dipped my bread in the "olive oil".  Yeah, I won't be doing that again.  That was foul.  Overly salty and metallic, and no amount of bread or water got that taste out of my mouth.  I practically had to eat an onion just to replace the palatal memory.

The next night we dined in Plaka (where else?).  Two more olives.

I took a break from ordering olives, until more complementary olives were served in this fabulous gem of a hotel near Dodona.  They were plump, juicy, flavorful, not at all pulpy, and the flesh melted away from the pit.  Were were given a precious four, and I had to share them with Randall.  Fortunately, when his salad came, he had four more, and he shared them with me.  These were from the owner's father's tree in Korinthos.  That's all she could say.  We couldn't buy them anywhere, but it does put us on the hunt for local olive sellers.  I could have eaten forty more.

I am trying to keep my olive count about the number of Starbucks we see in Greece.  We could have made it v. horses, but those seem to be as rare as cows, and we started the count in Athens, where, as you might expect, there are no cows.  We haven't actually been in a Starbucks--we're just keeping count.  Olives v. Starbucks ratio is currently 8:3.

If you like to weigh in on how many olives you think I will have eaten by the end of our trip feel free to add your comments.  I promise I'll have Randall scan the posts so it won't bias the outcome.

If you know where there are any Starbucks outside Athens, keep those comments to yourself.