Olive you

October 20, 2008 - 3:56 PM by David

Despite the historical connotation of the olive branch, olive harvesting season is often not a period of peace here. Clashes between Palestinian olive farmers and settlers in the West Bank regularly mar the olive harvest, and according to Israeli security sources, the situation is worsening.

However, my own personal olive harvest is going just fine, thanks. When we moved into our current home, we inherited a healthy olive tree that produces more and more green olives every year. It’s one of the few objects of vegetation in our yard we haven’t managed to kill.

Only problem is, even though I love olive oil, I hate olives. Fortunately the rest of my family is more Mediterranean oriented, and they love the little critters.
So for a week in October, they turn into people of the earth and climb the tree to fill bucket after bucket of the hard olives.

Once in a while, just like the Wilderness family, my wife will bottle the olives herself, with a precise recipe involving garlic, lemon vinegar and other tangy ingredients.
But she’s never been so happy with the results, saying the olives in the supermarket deli are tastier. So usually, we give away the olives that have been picked to anyone who wants them – neighbors, friends – we even stop people on the street asking them to please take these olives off our hands.

So, for at least one family, olive harvest season is still about holding forth the olive branch.
(Photo courtesy of Matan Brinn)

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