I am somewhat addicted to olives. Not just any old olive but Kalamata Olives. That's about as Greek as you can get while also shoveling some Feta cheese into your mouth.
I plead guilty. That's breakfast.
I had been buying my olives in dribs and drabs -- assuming you can imagine olives that way -- but now, because of my habituation I've bought in my supply in 4 kgm lots.
My mouth has gone wholesale.
But there's an irony in these groceries: I source my olives in sub tropical Queensland in cooee of downtown Ipswich.
Who woulda thought: Coolana Olives grows a mean Kalamata says I as I work my way through a huge pale of the stuff one olive pip at a time.
I can't get into the topic of Feta cheese so easily as -- what with Bulgarian, Danish, Australian and Greek; cows or sheep or goat -- feta is a mess of wannabes. For me the consumption is still open and I'm a Feta dilettante.
But if you want to study up, Choice has a handy ruling on Feta cheeses available.
That brings me to the final segment of a foodie trinity: preserved meats. I do like a good bit of sausage. I may be overwhelmed by the immense variety of meats out there but I value the journey one slice at a time.
My first great discovery was Salumi cured meats who mince up local pigs in the environs of the Northern Rivers of NSW. I was all set to work my way through their Italian style offerings when at the local Caboolture Markets the team of Richard and Juliette proffered a range of primarily smoked meats sourced from, I suspect, a Croatian tradition. These in part are produced in Beaudesert -- just south of Brisbane.
So who woulda thought how local you can go with this stuff?
Maybe you are thinking that preserved meats are not a good dietary choice. But the Mediterranean Diet Foundation recently published a new Mediterranean Diet Pyramid which includes processed meats -- albeit on recommended limited intake.
Since I have to eat low carbohydrate I value the 'hit' I can get from preserved process meats -- and bacon and ham are processed meats.
Similarly I have become yogurt dependent -- and since Greek yogurt is a very low carbohydrate food I gormandize tubs of Chris' Greek Style Yogurt like there's no tomorrow. Chris' is so much better than all the other pretend stuff on the supermarket shelves.
That's one of my hacks: to eat low carb, I've upped my diary: cheese and yogurt.
On top of all this food I consume good handfuls of Australian almonds -- and this year's crop was a bumper! -- and litres of Jingilli Etra Virgin Olive Oil. I prefer Jingilli because it stores better than other oils, comes in a handy large cask and sells at a much lower price for the quality. I eat, drink lots and lots of olive oil.
Choice also has a handy run down on available olive oils.
I may yet become an olive oil snob...
