I’m a fiend for olives, as you know. I’m in the final weeks of my annual task of curing some raw ones at home, which I really enjoy. My friends really enjoy jars of them for holiday gifts, or else they are really terrible liars. I’m crazy for the olive bars in groceries now, except for the prices, which vary wildly. You can find them at budget grocery stores for about $6.99 a pound, and at upscale groceries for anywhere from $11-$13 a pound. Have you noticed they don’t have slotted spoons on the olive bars? So unless you’re adept at scooping and draining, you can end up paying for brine. Maybe you want that, I don’t.
But the olive deal I am currently smitten with is at Wal-Mart. Delallo, an Italian food manufacturer in Pennsylvania, about 25 miles SE of Pittsburgh, has olives in a tub, usually found up near the deli counter with the specialty cheeses. They have several different 7 oz tubs, some are Greek, some are mixed, and a host of others. Here’s the big news. They are regularly $2.48. That’s less than $5 a pound. Eureka!
And btw? They’re delicious. You can order Delallo’s other products online, olives, pasta, sauces, oils, and more. Delallo claims to have given us the grocery store olive bar. So we can thank them for that!