Finding a Cure: Let the Olive Harvest Begin!

Check out my latest endeavor: curing olives! Courtesy of four very ripe olive trees on the property of the winery tasting room where my husband, Randall, works, we harvested a new hobby. We were out plucking the olives from the trees with Italian music on the stereo and a glass of champagne in our hands - an impromptu tango interrupting the picking. Such a fun morning!

But actually getting the bitter raw olives cured into something palatable is a whole other story. I've never done it before - so I'm hoping the experiment bears fruit, so to speak! I scoured the internet for curing recipes - and they are all over the map; none very specific. Oil cured? Salt cured? Lye cured? (I don't think so!) So, I cobbled together a brine - the quantities of the ingredients purely an educated guess at this point. But I'm recording it here for future reference, successful or not!

Cured Olives

• 1 10-gallon bucket of ripe olives
• 1 pound sea salt
• 2 ounces citric acid
• 12 lemons, halved
• 5 heads of garlic
• 24 dried Bay leaves

After individually scoring each and every single olive by hand (there goes my day!) - I then soaked and rinsed them in clear, cold water, filling and draining the bucket probably 5 times until the water ran clear of debris. I then filled the bucket one last time, submerging the olives by about 1 inch. To the water, I then added all of the other ingredients, and mixed well. I placed a large dinner plate weighted with a rock over the water to keep the olives submerged. And now I wait. I guess I change the brine solution every few days, or as bubbles and scum start to form around the edges of the plate. I'll test them after a week or two to see if the bitterness has been leeched, and hopefully I'll have something edible by Christmas! Stay tuned...