When non-cooks cook

[Jenise]

A friend, who really doesn't cook, recently told me of a tapenade she'd made and taken to a dinner party. It was 'delicious', but 'embarrassing' because it turned out that the olives she'd used weren't pitted.



Considering that a tapenade typically requires grinding in a food processor (a device I know she has and would have used because she never does anything by hand that can be done by machine), I can't imagine how the sound of pits flying about escaped her. But there you are--and no, I didn't ask.

That just scrambled my brain for the day!

Jenise, you have to go over there and revoke her food processor operator's license!

Actually, it happened to me. I bought pitted olives at a local deli to make tapenade once, but somehow, some un-pitted ones got mixed in the display case. Now I squeeze every olive before it goes in the food processor.

[Jenise]

Actually, it happened to me. I bought pitted olives at a local deli to make tapenade once, but somehow, some un-pitted ones got mixed in the display case. Now I squeeze every olive before it goes in the food processor.

Sure, you can get pits. But you figured it out and removed them. You didn't hear those pits not-grinding and take the finished tapenade somewhere unaware of the problems that lurked within, right?

Sure, you can get pits. But you figured it out and removed them. You didn't hear those pits not-grinding and take the finished tapenade somewhere unaware of the problems that lurked within, right?

I dumped it and remade it using canned and jarred olives I had on hand. Not as good, but it worked.

I wonder what the blade in her processor looks like now?