not all olives are equal

I have always loved black olives. My dad fed them to me as a baby. I would eat them like candy as a child. For Christmas one year, I requested a can of olives and found one in my stocking. I ate the entire thing by the end of the day.

I still love olives. I wait for sales, I buy in bulk-- olives and avocadoes (my husband's fetish) are our food budget luxuries.

But not every olive is alike for taste and quality. Here are some olive pointers:

Smaller olives are more delicious, most of the time. Don't buy the jumbo or large pitted, buy medium pitted. True, they won't fit on your fingers as well, but, well, we have to make some compromises if we want a truly delicious olive experience.

Be careful about generic brands. While some can produce a crisp, mildly salty, delicious olive, some are more inclined to the slightly winey, mushier type. If that's your preference, all the power in the world to you. As an olive connoseur, though, I have to say that I think I know what I'm talking about.

When you want to use only a few olives out of the can and save the rest, make sure you leave enough of that olive juice in the can to cover the remaining olives. Otherwise they get all rubbery and develop a distinctly winey aftertaste.

Unless you eat them on pizza or in mexican food, olives are much more delicious whole. (Olives in mexican food, you say? Oh, you need to try it.)

If any of you have bought yourself a can of olives that you are unsure of and would like advice, I am happy to inform you that my services as an olive tester are available. I'd give you my post office box, but then you would know where I live. So instead, I suggest that you post a picture of the olive in question and I will do my best to judge it on a purely visual basis.