Monday, January 16, 2012

Central Grocery Olive Salad

One of our Christmas gifts was a jar of olive salad from Central Grocery in New Orleans. Several years ago, Tony had a roommate who was from New Orleans, so he got to spend a lot of time there. And apparently this is the olive salad above all others, and you need to have a jar of it if you are going to make an authentic New Orleans muffuletta sandwich.


I'm totally going to make a vegan muffuletta one of these days. But I was curious to try this legendary olive salad right away, so I tossed it with spaghetti and chopped spinach. (Also, since I can never have too many olives, I threw in a few kalamatas I had on hand.)


In addition to green olives, the olive salad contains bits of cauliflower, carrots, onion, celery, pepperoncini, garlic and parsley, as well as some other spices and oil.  It's salty, tangy, olive-y goodness. 
Have you been to New Orleans? We are tossing around places to go for our 10th wedding anniversary this summer, and we have talked about going there. We'll be taking Jackson and Olivia with us wherever we go, so we have to choose a destination that is at least somewhat kid-friendly, to keep them from being bored. There has to be other things to do besides Bourbon Street, right?
Have a great day!

4 comments:

  1. Yes, I've been to New Orleans several times and it is one of my biggest regrets in life that I don't live there. Jackson and Olivia will love the local artists/mimes/crafts. By all means, GO!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. New Orleans has a really amazing atmosphere and vibe. It's like no place I'd ever been before. I highly recommend going, I was only able to spend 1 day there and I fell in love with it in 1 day. I can't wait until I can get back. I'm sure you can find tons of things for Jackson and Olivia to do :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love olives!
    Never been to New Orleans, but my husband spent summers there as a kid and loved it. Maybe that means it is kid friendly...

    ReplyDelete
  4. The husband and I went there for our honeymoon in October and we both LOVED it. Keep the kids off Bourbon St, but other than that, there's a lot to do! Seriously, the food was good, things in general seemed pretty inexpensive, and the people were lovely. Just walking around during the day, with all the street musicians and artists, would be fun enough for the kids, but we also went on a walking tour where a few different couples brought their kids. There was an awesomely cheesy (as in, hasn't changed since it was built in the 60s) wax museum, and there are a few other non-boring-for-kids museums around, too. I don't know if you do aquariums, but the one there is amazing. You should totally go and then write an entry about it, because just writing this comment makes me want to go back there! (And speaking of, I'm going to do a "what we ate in NOLA" post within the next couple weeks, so there's that...)

    ReplyDelete