This is not a food blog

For months now I've been reading nothing but John Cheever and Raymond Carver, and of their work, only the shorts. Perhaps it is because shorts are the candy of the literary world. These little treats that you consume quickly and that ultimately leave you wanting more. It's not that one isn't enough, it's just that that having had one perfect little bite doesn't stop you from wanting another. Anyway, I know that what kept me bound bouncing back and forth between these two authors was the similarity of their points of view and how uniquely American their work feels. Like equal and opposite characters, both write straightforward stories about the sadness and loss of everyday people. Funny, dark, candid pieces that make you want to do nothing but drink and smoke. Like suburban chroniclers on opposite sides of the track they give you moral-less stories of people you already know. Without pretense or trickery both authors write with a blunt realism that to me lies at the heart of American literature.

For those of you that don't know John Cheever is a product of the east coast/old guard world, writing about the upper/middle class, while Raymond Carver is from the next generation of west coast authors that focus more on the lower/middle class. What I realize is that by reading these men as a pair and seeing the disparity between east/west, rich/poor, old/new, that I was also able to see that they have captured what is common amongst these worlds. What Carver and Cheever make clear is that no matter where we are, and what sort of life we lead we are surrounded by incongruity. In their work the drunk and the reformer, the ignorant and the educated, the spiritual and secular, simply are. These counterparts are never put into conflict with one another, rather they exist side by side easily and without judgment. It is this acceptance of duality within everyday existence, that makes their work so tangible and addictive. I think it is also why their stories are able to make me feel at home in the chaos of the city. I could go on but instead I'll just urge you to remember them next time your looking for a good read.

An Ex-Lyer

Back in November, my good friend Jen of Eve invited me to an olive brining class at in Oakland. I was excited but had no idea what to expect. I have done my fair share of pickling but have never considered olive brining before. So off I went to the Bio Fuel Oasis co-op(I know stay with me) dreaming about the jars of bobbing little spheres that would soon be in my fridge. To my surprise the co-op is located in an adorable little brick gas station built in the 50's to resemble a pagoda. It was a building I passed often while living in Oakland, however, in my time it sat sad and abandoned with a bad paint job and shady characters in it's midst, so it was nice to see it being taken care of. Once inside, the olive lesson began. Of course there had to be some bad news before there was good. We learned that almost all of the olives sold in stores are cured with lye. Lye is a corrosive alkaline substance(I only partially know what that means) that will basically screw you up. The chemical is not only produced in mercury vats and transfers mercury to the foods that are produced with it, contact with lye can also cause everything from chemical burns to blindness. MMMMMMMM, who's hungry for olives? The real frustrating part of the predominance of the lye procedure is that the old world methods for brining olives may require patients but are incredibly simple.

Ok, so just to be clear the goal of brining is simply to remove the insanely foul/bitter flavor from a fresh olive to make it edible. As the chef that taught the class (and had studied cooking with italian grandma's in the countryside of italy) reminded us numerous times, olive brining is super straightforward. Follow one of these methods until your olives don't taste rancid; that's all there is to it. The first and oldest method we learned is my favorite although it isn't exactly practical for city. This is a salt cure which entails putting an equal quantity of salt and olives into a sac and hanging it up on a tree. Every day you simply go over and shake the bag, and three months later you have olives. Awesome right?

The two methods that we tackled in class were water brining and salt brining. For the water brine all you do is take olives, score them (which just means slicing them as you see in this pic) or crush them with a rolling pin, and then put them in a jar with water. Breaking up the olives just helps them to release their bitterness. Change the water daily and in 8 weeks they should be ready to season. The batch that we did in a water brine were green (less mature) olives. When using the water method you should be ready to see the olives turn a browner green when they oxidize in the areas that have been scored or broken. At first this bothered me but when I started to think about the green olives I purchase in stores, I realized they all have that sort of camouflage coloring and I decided to let the perfectionism go and love these little guys anyway.

Now in my opinion the salt brined olives were the real star of the show. Basically, take ripe olives and put them in a jar with a brine of 8 ounces of salt per gallon of water. Let them hang out in a cool place for a week. At that point rinse the olives off and change the brine to a 1 pound of salt per gallon of water ratio. Let those be for 15 days and repeat that process until your olives taste like olives, which took about 7 weeks total for me. At that point season them with whatever your pantry provides. I used balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon, chillis, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and honey and they were delicious. The only change I would make is to leave out the olive oil next time. It coats the olives in a way that is to greasy. Oh, and in terms of where you get raw olives..... look around you. Here in Northern California olive trees are everywhere so most people that do this go out with buckets and forage them in open spaces and friend's backyards. I've already spotted some trees that are perfect for picking but that info I'm not willing to share. You'll just have to go out and find a tree of your own.