Finding a house in suburban Perth with a yard much bigger than the bathroom can be a challenge but we managed to find one with a yard larger than the home itself. Size aside, it’s rather barren and actually quite dull but not nearly as dull as the “wet areas” aka kitchen and bathroom (now you know who didn’t get to tick any boxes in this process).
Last week while looking out the window of our sad kitchen I noticed Bronson all flustered in the backyard. Something had distracted him from his usual sunbathing and poo sniffing and it was birds. This wasn’t the first time in recent days that he had protected his territory from menacing pigeons and magpies, chasing them along the fence until they moved onto the next yard.
The main feature of this animal show lie in the far corner of the yard - all by its lonesome amongst Bronson’s landmines and dead patches of grass beholds a tree of one of Western Australia’s most precious fruits - the olive. Lucky for me, because I love the damn things. The rogue backyard olive tree in these parts of the country is not entirely unusual. We had a couple olive trees at our last house but I never really gave them a second look. It’s autumn which means olive picking season, the olives are ripe and falling from the tree therefore attracting the attention of Bronson’s winged adversaries. Wait. We have an olive tree. The olives are ripe. I’m letting the birds get first pick. My newfound interest in agriculture told me to take advantage of this situation.
We have a couple friends with olive farms, both of them about a 3 hours drive south of Perth. Last year we helped out at one of these farms the day after an 80’s themed party at the other farm (but that’s a whole other story). Our hangovers, and the innate desire to just get home on a Sunday afternoon after a weekend away, prevented us from being much help. However, my boozy brain did absorb a couple facts about olives. Although there are different varieties of olives, it’s not based on color. A green olive is just an olive that isn’t yet ripe. Once it’s ripe it goes black (or purple) and in order to eat it, it must first be fermented to get rid of its naturally bitter taste. Also, the first press of an olive is extra virgin olive oil and subsequent presses are just plain olive oil, essentially.
Recalling last year’s lesson in olives I decided to ask one of these olive farm friends for advice on how I can get my olives from the tree to my mouth. In order to protect his privacy I’ll refrain from using his real name and will refer to him as Munch. Over Skype chat Munch told me to put the olives in a container filled with brine (which is a water consisting of 10% salt) and store them in a cool place such as the garage. Top up the brine weekly and you’ll have edible olives in, oh, about 2 months. What! Two months?! Despite the time factor, I was game.
On Sunday Shane went to the footy with his dad and I picked olives. With a plastic food container in hand and Labrador defender of the olive by my side, I went out for the first batch, slowly picking olives by the handful. Up to this point, Bronson had neglected to take cue from the birds and eat the olives himself. But, like a small child, he mimics his parent’s every move and seeing me take interest in the tree peaked his curiosity to what lie on the ground beneath it. No is not a word in his vocabulary and I wasn’t about to spend my peaceful olive picking time prying olives from his massive snout so I just let it go. Besides, isn’t he supposed to possess this canine instinct that tells him what plants of nature are edible and which are poisonous?
During the final batch, I went outside to gather up a few more olives. Between the kitchen and the back door I nearly walked into a regurgitated mess of olives. Bronson must have heard my WTF! and appeared looking at me like, “oh yeah, forgot to tell you about that.” If he’s lucky, he’ll get a taste of the real way olives are meant to be eaten…but he’ll have to wait another 6-8 weeks to find out.
standing tall and proud
on the tree
sampling the produce
off to be fermented
LOVE the new blog! i'll be checking regularly. :) btw, did not know that green olives are simply black in a different stage of ripening. i hate black but LOVE green. especially when a nice hunk of garlic is shoved up it's rear... ;)
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