The Green Olive

I wish I could cook. With the amount of time I spend talking about food, you’d think I would be able to fry an egg every once in a while. Well, I can’t. I can shop, I can chop, I can measure, and I can mix, but when it comes to the actual «cooking» part, I freeze up. I think this is why I’m a condiment freak. Even though Coda B. is the one that typically does all the work, cooking-​wise, where would the meal be without the pomegranate wasabi horseradish dipping sauce? Or the mango thai chili glaze? Or the fig chutney made with the tears of baby ocelots? I’ll tell you where: SNOOZEVILLE. So despite the fact that I don’t touch a pan, I still feel as though my creative shopping contributes to each meal in its own unique way. Which is why I love cute little gourmet food shops like The Green Olive in Sedona. Because where my kitchen inadequacies may have left a tiny hole in my soul, I am more than happy to fill that hole up with deliciously unique extra virgin olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars.
The shop is unassuming from the front, located in the Hillside shopping center with a huge sign outside touting a «Gourmet Olive Oil Tasting Experience». We wander in because, well, when I see «Tasting Experience», that’s where I go. The small room is lined with about 30 different varieties of olive oils and balsamic vinegars, each with a stack of plastic tasting cups and a small «spout» for getting to the sweet nectar of the gods located in the cute, wine-​bottle shaped containers.
I’m all for taste-​tests and free samples and the like, but even I start to feel a little guilty when I’m on my 12^th sample and still haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to buy. Not an issue here. Coda and I probably sampled everything in the store, some things we sampled twice. Not only was the friendly employee in no way rushing us to stop with the sampling and get on with the purchasing, she actually started suggesting new samples. Sample combos no less, something we had not even thought about! I was tempted to hang around The Green Olive for a couple hours, trying every «combo» I could, but we had dinner reservations, so I’ll save that for another time.
I ended up purchasing a Chipotle Olive Oil, a delicious Extra Virgin Olive Oil that leaves you with a bit of a kick. For $ 18, it’s not the cheapest item in my condiment collection, but we are talking about my culinary self-​worth here, so I didn’t mind. I still haven’t used it, but I’m sure I’ll be able to manage drizzling it on some bruschetta or crustini in the next couple days, making me feel like a gourmet chef despite the fact that I once burned ramen. So yeah, I’m a fan!