Dog and I took a noon walk to the local spice store and produce shop. The owners of the spice shop are from Yemen, and they and the store are a treasure. I picked up fresh ginger and turmeric, an assortment of spices including dried various peppers, an assortment of herbs I don't grow at home, but the best find was from a recent shipment of Tunisian olives. Olives were grown in Tunisia before the city states of Greece existed. Today, Tunisia is the third largest olive grower after Italy and Spain. Some of the world's best olives come from ancient but still producing vines. I selected large jars of colossal black olives, colossal green olives both cured in ascorbic acid without salt. Smaller jars of medium sized black, purple and green olives also cured in ascorbic acid, and large green olives stuffed with some kind of soft cheese and others with hot peppers. A medium sized jar of brined capers as well. They also had recently brined feta cheese, for those who don't know, feta is sheep farmer cheese and it is brined. Low in fat, high in protein. Best eaten at room temperature, and it is excellent when added to baked dishes, casseroles, and stews. A few logs of fresh goat cheese and a seed called chachatie, likely known by the names. Chachatie, I learned this from the owner's wife a few years ago, is pounded in a mortar with a touch of olive oil. It is aromatic, similar to camomile, and tastes like a minty cross between camomile and pineapple. Either spread on toasted bread, or added to other dishes as a flavoring, favored in desserts, pastries, and even teas. At the produce shop I picked up about 20lbs of assorted fruit and veggies, enough for a couple of days or so. I asked the spice store owners to hold about a dozen more jars of olives that I'll pick up by car tomorrow. Dog carried the produce home in a Turkish backpack made for their giant sheep dogs, he barely noticed the weight. I carried everything from the spice store in my back pack and one shopping bag.
As soon as I got home I prepared a simple tapenade of chopped olives, capers, hot pepper flakes and put it to rest for the flavors to blend. To be spread on bread as part of tonight's dinner. Then prepared a chicken stew, made with more (green) olives, carrots, onions, garlic, chachatie paste, hot and sweet peppers, feta cheese, assorted herbs, to be served over steamed orzo baked with more feta cheese, garlic and black olives, water and tahini for slow cooking on the stovetop in a 5 quart pot. I've got 4 large round loaves of ground flax seed and buckwheat flour kneaded and rising for later baking so they'll be just out of the oven in time for dinner, prepared before we left for the noon walk.
I then mashed 2 of the goat cheese logs with raw chopped garlic and herbs, reformed them into logs, and did the same with the remaining two and a pint of fresh blueberries, placing them all in the fridge until tomorrow. If eating chilled, the goat cheese crumbles and the taste can be a bit stunted, almost harsh. Removed from the fridge to attain room temperature, goat cheese becomes creamy with a much smoother flavor, excellent on bread or crackers, accompanied by whatever the imagination desires, becomes wondrous in scrambled eggs or omelets. The grandkids have been munching on fresh Mexican plums, toasted cashews and almonds, since we got back. Grandma had made them salmon salad sandwiches for lunch, but they never stop eating. They are bottomless pits of skinny. No one would believe what they consume when looking at them.