Day 346 - Giant Greek Green Olives

So MO, a Trader Joe’s Bailey’s Crossroads employee, has really caused a problem in our house.

Mo was working at the sample station the other night when we were in the store.  He was serving something, I can’t even remember what, but in talking to him he asked if we had tried the new olives yet.  Nope, we hadn’t.  We had looked at them, but the jar is SO LARGE that it just seemed like too big of a commitment to get one. 

So Mo opens a jar.  And David eats an olive.

 

At our store these are on an end cap - a section of "new products".  Looks like they are also a Flyer Item this month.

Thanks Mo, we now have FOUR BIG JARS of these huge ass green olives at our house J. 

This is David after Mo gave him a taste of these olives.  Yeah, he was excited.
And look - he has new glasses!

We bought one jar that night.  We stopped and talked to another employee after the olives were in our cart already and he saw them and said something about having bought MULTIPLE jars to save them (they are seasonal and TJ’s won’t have them for long).  Well, that got David to thinking…  So when we were shopping tonight, 3 more jars were purchased.

I mean heck, they are OLIVES.  They are SEALED.  It is not like they are gonna go off!  We will store the unopened ones in the basement where it stays pretty cool.  And David will be a happy man while he has these “in stock” at home. 

Here is David when we went back and he purchased THREE MORE JARS...

The label says “Gigantic, meaty, fresh tasting olives (with pits)”.  That is a good summary. 

Here is my review – these olives are HUGE.  The jar itself is big (1 lb 5 oz), but really the jar has to be big because the olives inside are so large.  The first thing you notice (after you get over the size of these suckers) is the color.  They almost seem an unnatural shade of green.  They have sea salt, but they are some of the least salty olives I have ever had.  The least salty, but the most meaty.  These are seriously meaty, folks. 

They are soft but not at all mushy.  They are very good, but not my favorite olives in the entire world.  I like them, but would I stock up on 4 jars if it was just me I was feeding?  Probably not.  I would get one jar, maybe 2.  I would rate them a 4.25.

I served them (in my fancy olive dishes) the other night at a birthday party dinner.

Now here is what David, who is in love with these olives and might just marry them if he were not already hooked up with me, says about them:  “Soft.  Fleshy.  Ample.  Delicious.  Only slightly salty, and yet still very flavorful.  This was advertised by the guy at TJ’s (editor’s note:  see above, it was Mo) as the best olive he had ever tasted, and I would have to concur. 

Each olive is, of course, different and delightful in its own way, like children.  But when eating this olive one is filled only with the impression that one is eating the best olive ever made.  And, that can’t be true, because there is a whole jar full of olives just like it!!!   I GIVE THESE A 5.”

See??  I told you he loves these.  He actually tricked me into bringing him the open jars of olives before he would give me his reviewing, saying he “needed” to eat another one to be able to tell me his opinion.  Yeah, right, you just wanted another olive, dude.

Price - $6.99 (which at first seemed pricey to us, but when you consider how many olives you get and compare the price to other olives it is actually cheap)

Rating – oh hell…  I was going to average the two ratings together, but David loves these so much I think I should just use HIS rating – THEY GET A 5 J

P.S. – Thanks Mo!!!  You are a super employee.  Your smile, chat with us, and willingness to give us a taste let us discover something we wouldn’t have otherwise bought.  And David is certainly thankful to have found these olives.