Complex Numbers

Olive It And More

To wrap up February's "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]...

Olive

There's a grocery store on Broadway, on the Upper East Side (corner of 80th Street if you're ever in the area) called Zabar's.

I get the impression that it's moderately well-known across the land. Maybe it's been in a movie or show or two; I don't know. Maybe its vibe, which more modern and chain-affiliated places can't replicate with their corporate policies, focus on metrics, and eventual enshittification, is just something people respond better to.

Since I haven't been there in a while, I can't comment on their prices, but I remember them being about what you'd expect in Manhattan: slightly elevated, though not sky-high like in Hawai'i. But their location means they serve a moderately well-to-do clientele, which means offering some premium selections. The first time I went in there, I nearly dehydrated salivating over the seemingly endless, though really not because we're still talking about a Manhattan grocery store with limited space, selection of cheeses.

And then I saw the olive section and almost fainted from delight.

I like olives, you see. Not just black, green, and kalamata, but all olives.

Want to hear my most idiosyncratic quality? I don't think I've ever admitted to it in here before. Or anywhere online, really. I usually keep it to myself, because the one time I told someone in person, the look I got was so filled with horror and disgust, you'd think I made a habit of munching on baby sandwiches.

I get green olives on my pizza.

That's right. Pizza. New York slice, of course, with, at minimum, pepperoni and onions... and green olives.

I can't be alone in that, even if no one else will ever fess up. If I were, the local pizza shop wouldn't offer it as a topping, would they? And not just the local pizza shop, but the old one, the one that had been around since before I even got to town in 1983, the one that even more closely approximated NY pizza but sadly went out of business because of, well, you know—they offered green olives on their pies, too. Not just because of me, either; it was on the menu when I first visited each of them. Every once in a while, someone will misread the order slip and give me green peppers, which are an abomination, instead of green olives. But usually, they get it right, and they've never been out of stock (to be fair, the whole reason for green olives is preservation, so the little eyeballs might have been sitting around for years, for all I know).

Last time I went to pick up my extra cheese-pepperoni-onion-beef-jalapeno-green olive pizza at the place that managed to stay open, I recognized the owner as the one who provided the pie to me. "Ah, good! Green olives!" he enthused in his boisterous, Brooklyn-Italian accent. "You have wonderful taste!"

Finally, vindication.