Marinated Olives Tapas Recipe

Have you ever seen olive trees growing under scorching sky out of dirt that is little more than sand? It is quite the miracle. Like dates, not that my getting a date would be a miracle, I mean that the growing of dates appears miraculous because of the where they grow...

While I was living in the Middle East I was blessed to be able to see orchards of olives and date palms lining the roads as we traveled through Syria and Jordan. I was also lucky to be able to travel to some great historical sites. The great amphitheatre of Bosra; Palmyra, city of Queen Zenobia the Defiant; Jerash, Roman city of a million truncated columns; Homa site of an Ancient water wheel, still turning after a thousand years; Petra, the rose city of the dead and the Imposing craggy pile of Krak de Chevalier.

Wait crack? No, not crack, if you want crack head over to Felony Flats. Krak? I think it means castle or fortress. The Krak de Chevalier is as it sounds a crusader castle that was occupied by Richard the Lionhearted. Who was as we all know Lionhearted and Light on his feet, it seems that there was a lot of trouble stirred up in Europe by Dick’s little boy crush on Phillip of France.

I suppose that’s one of the reasons Richard buggered off to the Holy Land to smite the unbelievers. I love the history of the crusades. The museum in Damascus was filled with treasures from the crusades. From chain mail to goblets, jewelry, thousands of swords and spears and helmet. There were also ancient books, so many ancient books. The climate was conducive to the survival of such normally transient things as books, cloth and even food, such as dates, baked bread and figs. Lots of things from the camps and castles or campy castles, from the mundane to the spectacular all crammed into display cases to be ogled at by the limited number of Tourists allowed to enter into Syria.

The history of the crusades is long, gory and goes on for centuries. The high point of the crusades has to be the 11^th and 12th centuries for sheer bowel ripping drama. That seems be when the big mothers were playing, like Richard and Saladin Though they didn’t play nice, and often killed as many of their own people as their enemies it all seemed to work out in the end. Or rather it didn’t and led to a further 800 years of turmoil and fighting in the Middle East that continues to hack limbs of innocent bystanders and drenching the desert sands in seas of blood and oil, and blood, and Chanel Number 5, and blood.

Back to our friend the ever chivalrous and Schizoid Saladin. Saladin was one of the great Saracen (Muslim) leaders that Richard the left footed was up against. His sprawling defensive Castle near Latakia in Syria still stands near a thousand years later as a testament to either Saladin’s might, or his increasing megalomania and paranoia. You have to give the man props for becoming Sultan of both Egypt and Syria, and for slaughtering thousands of crusaders and their hangers on. Not that the crusaders didn’t slaughter thousands of people. Far from it. In order to feed their vast army they often laid waste to entire Christian kingdoms, slaughtering the very people they were trying to save from the Saracens. The final crusade, an embarrassment to all parties involved, hit a low point when the crusaders, tired of traveling. Decided to skip their goal of freeing the holy land from the unbelievers and laid siege to the Christian Capitol of Constantinople. Sadly the last crusaders never even reached the holy land. Xanadu baby! Roller Disco Crusade! Oh wait..damn Xanadu was the palace of the Kublai Khan, I just mucked that up. Xanadu was the summer palace of Kublai Khan ("Shangh'dhu" is the closest I can come to the real pronunciation and it's not good. This was where Marco Polo showed up. It was smaller than the current Imperial palace having only 4,000 rooms for the Imperial family and some 20,000 for the staff, retainers, concubines and eunuchs. 

Everywhere you turned in Syria there was something of incredible age and history. It was hard to walk through the narrow filthy streets without stepping on something of vast historical significance. For example, St John the Baptist head was buried in no less than three shrines in various parts of the city! How could this be you wonder? Well the head that they had in the tomb on the street called “Straight” was St John the Baptist as a young man. The one in the shrine off of Omayyad square was St John the Baptist when he was an old man and the one located near the Jewish quarter was St. John the Baptist as a 19^th century sheep herder. You've got to love relics, those little bits of dead saint that just make a church a church .According the distribution of relics one must believe that every Saint, Apostle and Prophet had seventeen fingers and at least thirty toes. How do you get fitted for gloves?

Of course if my great aunt Penny was knitting the gloves there would be no problem. Here gloves always seem to have extra fingers. She was a fine knitter and did great detailed pattern work, she just didn’t seem to know how to stop. I got a scarf that was darn near ten foot long. One year I got a sweater with a turtleneck that had to be rolled down six or seven times just so that the top of my head would pop through! Well at least she had the best intentions.

Take lots of olives, black olives, green stuffed olives, unstuffed green olives, Nicoise olives, it's important to have a good mix of them for maximum flavor. This can be spicy or mild, it's up to you (YAY! you are all grown up now!):

Take one pound assorted olives

Mix 1/3 cup of olive oil, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, a little paprika, cayenne, jalapenos or chopped pimento to taste.

Pour over olives and marinate overnight.

Serves 6 as part of a tapas meal.