Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Saw this on Emeril Live on the Food Network the other night, when I was too tired to reach the remote a foot away from the recliner – and it turns out to have been a worthwhile fit of laziness.

Ingredients:
Large olives
Blue cheese
Almond slivers
Coarse-ground black pepper
Garlic cloves

Take some of the almond slivers and dump ‘em out on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, take the jar of large olives.

Pour the brine into something and set aside.

Dump, coax, prod and otherwise manhandle the olives into something.

Get rid of the pimentos. They suck out real easy.

Take some blue cheese. The real stuff, not the dressing.

Usin’ a knife of some sort – I used a fancy spreadin’ knife with a red cowboy boot for a handle – poke as much blue cheese into each olive as you can. This takes awhile. It’s stinky. But not any more stinkier’n puttin’ blood bait on a fishin’ hook.

Take almond slivers out of the oven at about 10 minutes.

Now, stick two or three of the almond slivers in the blue cheese-filled hole of each olive.

Take the empty olive jar and pour, oh, an eighth-inch or more of coarse-ground black pepper in it.

Add 10 or a dozen garlic cloves.

Poke the blue-cheese-and-almond-filled olives back in the jar.

Pour the brine back in.

Waller it around some to get the pepper and garlic flavor mixed around.

Put it in the icebox and forget about it awhile.

Now, when it comes time for a martini, use vodka. Plain ol' Smirnoff is fine. Nothing fancy required, since you're fancyin' up this drink yourself. I like gin myself, but gin is already a little pungent – and these here olives are pheweee pungent enough on their own.

Make a martini. It’s “cool” in some quarters to skimp on the dry vermouth. Don’t. Otherwise, why not just drink a shot of vodka and forget about it? My personal ratio is 6:1 gin to vermouth – but in this case, vodka to vermouth.

Poke a couple of them fancy olives on a toothpick and put in a martini glass.

Pour your martini over them. Pour just a smidgen of the brine – just a good drop – in to make it a little dirty. (This is another variation for me, since I don’t like dirty martinis as a rule).

Enjoy.

Halfway through your drink, take that toothpick out, clamp your choppers down on one of them olives and go to town. It will surprise you.

Believe it or not, the flavor of the roasted almond will barge its way past the blue cheese, the tangy olive and the vodka and announce itself first on your palate. Amazing.

Very nice. Very tasty.

Finish the drink. Eat the other olive. You’ve had your appetizer.

--ER