The olive recipe

Do you love olives?

I love olives.

There used to be a great restaurant on the West side of mid-town Manhattan- La Locanda- and when you sat down Pep,e 'the proprietor', would bring you a marinated small plate of black olives and lentils. I could eat just that dish for the rest of my life.

What I now know, but never saw, was the intense marinade that those simple olives and lentils under went in order to bring them to that higher place. So, now I'm going to pass on what I consider to be one of the great antipasto dishes of all time...

Buy some olives that you like...maybe some big green Sicilians, some Kalamatas, some Nicoise, etc...

Rinse them thoroughly with water to get as much of the salt and vinegar out.

Put them in a large bowl.

Take 5-8 large garlic cloves. Crush them and peel the skin off. Put them in the same bowl.

Crack some large pepper chunks into the bowl. Sea salt into the bowl as well.

If you want, maybe add some lemon peel to the bowl.

Throw in some earthy aromatic herbs like thyme, sage, rosemary into the bowl. If you only have dried- so be it.

Add like a little tiny dollop of cumin to the bowl. This is important! Don't forget the cumin- a little more is safer than a little less.

Get some decent olive oil and almost cover all the ingredients.

Mix well.

Let stand for a day.

You now have one of the best dipping olive oils on the planet. And the olives are delicious as well...

In an ideal world, go to a good wine shop and buy a nice $14.99 bottle of Friulian Tocai of get Bisol Prosecco. If they're trying to sell you on something they recommend that's a couple of dollars more...go for it. You only live once.

Sante!