More recently, my memories include the first sight of the olive groves that whipped by me as I gazed out of the train window on my first trip through Tuscany. I think that's when I knew that I really WAS in Italy. And I can still taste the pungent slickness of good olive oil dripping from a slice of fresh crusty bread, in a Seattle restaurant in the late 80's, when the "Cal-Ital" trend of dipping bread into oil mixed with balsamic vinegar first came into vogue. I remember my first real Spanish "tortilla," prepared by my friend Bego and her husband Mario for us in their tiny Barcelona apartment -- the potatoes and onions sweetened by the heavy, greenish oil, the eggs firm but still creamy. That's still the best omelette I have ever eaten. And I recall the very first time I prepared pasta with anything other than a red or white sauce, back in my first apartment during my college days, when I suddenly realized (or did I just have nothing else in the cupboard?) that all my noodles really needed was a bit of olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper, plus a little parmesan cheese. Of course, back then, my parmesan was probably the powdered kind that comes in the little green cardboard silo -- but that's a sin I'll atone for some other time!
These days, my life is connected with olives in a very meaningful way -- through my daughter, Olivia, whose name resonates with all my sense memories of and love for Italy and the Mediterranean, as well as the deeper symbolism of peace that is also generally associated with the olive branch. I hope that when she gets old enough to think about it, she will love
