The story of the stuffed olives

Days back, my better half won a contest at his office and the prize was an ITC gift hamper. Well, the better half was not too thrilled about it, I assume he would have preferred a Bacardi or a Budweiser gift hamper. But the rest of us were elated and we pounced on the contents. As we devoured the cookies and savories and put the ready to eat curries and desserts for later consumption, we noticed a beautiful glass bottle filled with olives. The bottle read “Olives stuffed with minced pimiento”. The picture of the pimiento looked like red capsicum. None of us spared it much thought as my mom in law placed it on the lower shelf of the refrigerator.

Days passed and the contents of the gift hamper were all consumed. Well, all except the olives. I tasted one and did not much care for it. My kids tried and did not care for it either. My better half, better not just in winning contests but also in marketing skills tried to market it to the kids. It’s a Spanish dish he said. A delicacy, very exclusive, very “firangi”. It might well be true, I do not dispute that. He was quite convincing as he ate one and rolled his eyes in ecstatic delight. The kids just told him to eat all of the olives and left the room!

Days passed and the olives languished in the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. My mom-in-law said she consumed them with curd rice. “Do you like them?” I asked. “ Hmmm, they are ok”, she said. Fie on middle class frugality! We scrimp to the extent that we miss enjoying our life as well as our curd rice. If mom-in-law wanted to adulterate her curd rice with olives stuffed with red capsicum preserved in vinegar- well it’s her choice to make.

Days passed and the olives did not seem to decrease in quantity very visibly. Guess, curd rice does not taste all that good with stuffed olives. Yesterday, mom-in-law asked me to make pickle out of those olives. Eureka! Why didn’t this idea occur to me? I pride myself on my pickling skills. I have picked pickle recipes from my grand mom and have gloated in the appreciation they fetched me. I will turn them into mouth- watering sweet and sour pickle! I took the bottle out, sieved off the vinegar, coarse crushed the olives, heated the oil and put the spices in. As the seasoning crackled, I imagined narrating the story of the olives- how a bit of common sense and culinary skills can infuse life into a lost food item! I put the olives into the oil and the moment the smell hit my nose, the barometer of my confidence plummeted. Forget mouth-watering, this is going to be a disaster. Not one to give up too soon, I added the salt, the jaggery, the remainder of the spices and waited. The mixture cooled and I took a bit to taste. It was bitter and very vinegarish in flavour. Fie on middle class frugality! We do not know when to cut our losses and move on.

Days, no years back, in our neighbourhood, a person had laid the foundation of a house. For years it remained like that, just the plinth. We used to play house there. We always wondered why the plinth never went up. Many said that the owner did not have money. Others said the land was disputed. Later we got to know that the plinth was not as per the approved design. Almost a generation later, the owner’s son demolished and constructed a house there. Now I realise that the person had made a wise decision. He would have burnt up more resources in trying to turn the wrong plinth into something bigger, like I burnt up oil,jaggery,salt, spices,LPG and energy in turning the olives into a pickle.

Tough call to take. When something does not go ok, when do we decide to stop and walk away? When do we stop trying to turn things around or hoping it will turn around and exit? I have not got an answer to that. I pour the pickle into a clean jar and hope that we can consume it. If it is still there after a month, I will throw the jar away! Or will I try to turn it into something else….I don’t know.