The Great Olive Caper

 My latest experiment: Olives! Our tree out front has decided it is happy enough to give us a meager crop. I can't tell what kind they are, perhaps some kind of arabequina. Uncle Bear helped me strip the lowest branches of the semi-ripe skinny little olives. Unfortunately, the olive flies beat us there - about 80% had little bore holes in them and had to be tossed.

I got about 3 1/2 cups worth of good olives after sorting. Of these, half I smashed with a mallet and the other half I painstakingly slitted along the sides before dumping them into baggies with water to soak some of the extremely bitter oleuropein out before brining. It took 2 weeks changing their water every day till they were mellow enough! Now the long wait to see what they will taste like...