Tapenade

Well, the good news is: the ant situation seems to have died down (thank Jebus). The bad news is: I had to celebrate it by making Tapenade.

The goodness of the good news is not to be underestimated, though. Those ants were gross and were freaking me out and giving me nightmares. Plus they made Connie comment that she wanted to barf (I second that emotion, Connie). It was pretty horribly gross. Before I would cook, I took the vacuum into the kitchen and would suck up every ant I could see so at least things were relatively clean while I was cooking. (Note: after an internet search, I then put talc in the vacuum cleaner to do in at least those ants). But then a few hours would go by and those little fuckers would be coming out the cracks again. I washed down their trails with bleach, but they didn't care. It was pretty miserable.

Then they finally stopped just being on the ceiling and when they came down to earth (A.K.A. 'the counter') I was able to do things like intercept their route with the ant traps. And once that happened, I finally seemed to gain some footing. As of today the ant percentage in the kitchen was roughly zero, which leads me to imagine there was some mass ant extinction somewhere in my walls thanks to the wonders of modern technology. But that is fine by me.

Okay, I'm done talking about ants. I'm just pretty damn happy they're gone, and look immensely forward to whatever the next plague is.

In the meantime, Tapenade, provided by the Gratin Dauphinois-giving Bob Haug. As I said, even though nearly all of Vol. 2 of the Recipe Book is theoretically Main Dishes, there appear to be lots of random recipes chucked in there that are distinctly not, e.g. Tapenade.

This is obviously unfair as I do not much like olives. Nor does Tracie, and she's been visiting for several days and was put to work on the production line with me. But the recipe book wants what it wants, we are merely its slaves. It's always nice to make food for your guests that they don't like, don't you think? Especially when you make them make it for themselves, too.

Tracie and I have been friends since we were 10, and in high school we would periodically make things in my parents' kitchen that would turn out to varying levels of success. We both have distinct memories of the day we attempted Boston Creme Pie in my kitchen while listening to Wham! on the radio, which is amusing because I don't recall that the pie turned out especially good or bad. I guess it's the journey, not the destination.

Peekaboo

Anyhoot, we relived our high school glory in my kitchen with the Tapenade, which basically means I shouted out orders of what Tracie should dump into the food processor and then wandered away yelling about ants. As neither of us was too geeked about a big olive paste for dinner, we also made ourselves a spanakopita, which was terrific, but you don't get to hear about that because it's not in this book. Too bad for you.

The kitchen is open again

As for the Tapenade, I have this to say about it:

1. It has made me accept once and for all that I need a bigger food processor. Josh and I tried to save space by getting the combo blender/food processor, and that little tank just is not enough. Making the spanakopita is enough to tell me that, but the Tapenade was just bursting at the seams.

2. Neither Tracie nor I liked it very much, but that is because neither of us much likes olives. What I (and I think she) was (were) able to discern is that if you do like Tapenade in general, this one is pretty fancy and nice. That I could even tell that through the olive taste was pretty impressive.

3. It looks like regurgitated cat food.

Of course, Josh enjoyed it. Not enough to keep raiding the fridge for it, so I'd say it ranks somewhere in the 'okay' neighborhood on the 'Josh says it's good' scale.

Cat food

Underappreciated Tapenade

1 can pitted black olives (drained)
1 can green olives with pimento
1/2 chopped red pepper
1/3 cup sun dried tomato in oil
1/4 flat leaved Italian parsley
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil optional (ignored)

Wipe ants off various jars of olives and such. Tell Tracie you have no idea when she asks what 'pimento' actually is and to just hush and dump them into the food processor.

Further order her to chop half the red pepper. Give other pieces to the dog. Feel angry that you had to buy sun dried tomato in oil when you have sun dried tomato not in oil at home. Feel even angrier when you go out to the new garden to cut your very own parsley and discover it is all dead and burned just like Josh and Tracie told you it would be. Send Josh to grocery store to get parsley.

Have Tracie dump remaining stuff into food processor, which clearly is not up to a job of this volume. Tell her that it is totally fine that the red pepper never processed up and is now huge red pepper chunks in the Tapenade.

Serve with crackers, or home made pita chips a la Tracie. Have Josh pronounce it 'good.'