These are some of the olives that I started to salt-cure a couple of weeks ago – see here. When we tasted one or two of them they weren’t bitter at all, so I washed the salt off these and put them to soak in spring water for a couple of days, changing the water a couple of times, and then drained them and tossed them in olive oil ready to serve them to friends with apéritifs last night. They were pronounced good, by us, of course, but more importantly by the olive-growing friends who shared them with us. I’m now soaking the rest of the olives and will store them in jars covered with olive oil for the next few weeks.
olivesandartichokes 
Brilliant – I bet they taste fantastic 🙂
They do! They get better every year as the tree matures.
no doubt a proud and pleasureable moment. interesting to read about the process
I’ve got serious olive envy here! 🙂
Just this morning I started a 2nd batch of green olives in spring water. I hope there’ll fare better than the first method I tried. Time will tell.
I haven’t succeeded using spring water only. Salt seems to work better. Where do you get your olives from?
Sorry for the delayed reply. I’ve been away and wanted to check to make sure of my answer. These are green olives, Sevillano, that are grown in California. Following guidelines from a university, I slit each olive, soaked them in spring water that was changed daily, starting on 17-11. This morning I placed them in a brine solution with some vinegar, herbs and spices. I plan on tasting one next week to see how things went. Fingers crossed.
If you find a stranger at your lounge door when the sun is past the yardarm, looking desirously at both wine bottle and the olives . . . well, you may have an uninvited guest . . .!
Very envious – they look great.
Oh lovely… wish I was there! Mmmmmm…
Sigh….!