My dad always said that he loved to go for walks, and each mile he walked, he had to come up with one idea per mile. I am just coming back home from a 5 K walk and I have one idea (I still have my phone set to kilometers, and I havenβt bothererd to reset it to miles). My idea was to write about olives!! Letβs talk about olives! Olives have become a theme I have chosen to hide here and there in some of my artwork for those who care. And I know, explaining or directing attention to the olives is totally deflating a mystery I could have really run with. What? You want to know about why I put an olive in this collage? What? Whatβs so funny? Iβm really dying on stage here killing a joke. But oh well. I actually want to talk about OLIVES!
Portait of Mary Todd Lincoln (pictured with olives).
My motivational poster mock-up.
Painting of my great aunt Dorothy, with olive over her eye to protect her identity.
Why do I love olives? For one, the olive branch is a symbol of peace, right? You offer an olive branche when you want to make peace with someone. Itβs everywhere. On dollar bills. In art everywhere. Olives are cute and round. Sometimes theyβre black. I mean who hasnβt put pitted olives on each finger only to pop them off one by one. Kalmata olives give a tangy and salty flavor in many dishes, if you donβt want to go the anchovy route. Here, try this recipe for Spaghetti with Tuna, Lemon and Breadcrumbs
Olives are of course also green and theyβve got that pop of red when theyre stuffed with pimentos. Opposite colors. Colors associated with Christmas or the Basque Flag!
When I lived in Basque Country, I would head over to the Spanish side to buy groceries. They were less expensive there. And boy, let me tell you, there were entire aisles full of olives! Theyβre huge in Spain!!! Well not their size, but their popularity certainly is!! Iβm sure I could have found chocolate colored olives if Iβd have looked hard enough.
The olive aisle in the BM Supermercado in IrΓΉn, Spain. (Photo by Britta Pejic)
A glass of wine would come with a small ceramic bowl of spicy olives. That was standard.
Some of my favorite scenes from movies involve olives. In β9 to 5β when the three gals are smoking βMaui-Wowieβ, theyβre enjoying everything they find to eat in the refrigerator. Thereβs a shot of Barbarella saying how wonderful everthing tastes, while in the background you can hear Lily Tomlinβs character say βOh, these olives!!β Itβs my favorite line in the whole movie!! And then who could forget Nigel Tufnel complaining about the arrangements backstage!
βLookβ¦look! βWhoβs in here? NO oneβ¦
β¦.and then in here, thereβs a lih-ool guy!β
(But heβs a professional. Heβll rise above it!)
When I used to drink, I loved Martinis. Dirty vodka Martinis. I loved how salty they were. And no one wanted to take a sip from mine because they were so infused with olive juice. One time I got pretty drunk on a few martinis with family and started getting a little bitter and beligerent and melancholy with some family. I felt bad about it the next day (part of why I donβt drink anymore). I apologized to my aunt about my behavior the night before. She said βItβs ok. It was probably the olives!β Bless her for descalating a problematic situation with a good olive joke!!
Some people may not find olives as humorous as I do. Take Sally for instance.
This poor woman (if this is indeed for real and if sheβs not an actress- I have worked on a daytime talk show, and there is a lot of significant fakery)! She has a debilitating phobia of olives. I have grown up with a debilitating phobia too, and so I am empathetic to the sweating, the adrenaline rush and the need to jump out of your skin. But my phobia is not olives. Itβs something else. But thatβs for another time, if at all.
Do you know any Olive songs?
This one comes to mind:
Or this one, but itβs sung by Olive Oyl!
And this one. Not olives per se. But again that symbol of peace?
And thereβs this song which I probably should have just written myself! But I think this guy is singing about someone named βOliveβ!
Thank you for accompanying me on my olive journey! Next time you are hungover and wonder what awful things you might have said the night before and why you might have said them, rememberβ¦it could just have been the olives!! π«πΈ
I love olives, too. My girlfriend has a tougher time with them, having been forced to eat crappy canned olives as a youngster. But I'm trying to bring her around...