kalamata olive hummus

Guess what! Tonight I'll have my autofocus 50mm lens. I'm so excited. So ridiculously excited! No more fuzzy photos. I'm bad at focusing. I blame my eyesight... but I could just be a sucky focuser.

I've spent today cleaning up the huuuuuge mess I created in the wee hours of last night, shooting my final project for product photography. Homemade lightbox made of an ikea laundry hamper. For real. Did it work? Yes... pretty well, actually! But I think I'm going to take another pass after I get my new lens.

To keep myself entertained while cleaning up a mess of dried chiles, green cardamom and star anise, I've been watching old episodes of Friends. I just finished the episode where Rachel walks out on Ross because she discovered the pro/con list he made when deciding whether or not to break up with Julie for her. If I had a pro/con list for Adam, which I don't, one con would be that Adam doesn't like olives. In fact he hates them passionately. A pro, however, would be that he humours me and will still eat any food I make that has olives in it. Generally, I don't call on his generosity very often, but once and a while I have to have my olive fix.

Today was one of those days... so hummus happened.

mini kalamata olive quesedillas with tzatziki

 

Olives and I have a tumultuous history. When I was little, I loved them more than any small child should. I ate my parents' boozy martini olives. I used to eat kalamatas straight out of the container. I loved them so much that I ate an entire container of them and it didn't end well. I couldn't bring myself to eat one for years after that. I must have been about 18 when I allowed these briney purple wonders back into my life, and boy did I ever. The intense love for them that I had as a child returned in full force. There is just something about them - their saltiness, their tang, their meaty texture... they taste like nothing else. I can't think of anything more quintessentially exotic in flavour than a kalamata olive.