Giant Chalkidiki Olives

I saw this jar of Chalkidiki Olives arrive at Trader Joe’s displayed near the holiday items.  

These olives are the pits.  :)  Not really.  Actually, these olives HAVE pits...

The sight of them reminded me of David’s great find last year – the Giant Greek Olives (review here ) which he adored so much that he stocked up on huge ass jars of them as if he were an end of the world prepper.  He still has one jar left!  The jar of Giant Chalkidikis (do you think if I type that word enough times I might actually learn how to spell it?) that I picked up this year is 17.6 oz (as opposed to David’s favorites last year which are 21.16 oz).  The olives DO have pits (which is how we like them, but I feel the need to warn you of this fact cuz I don’t want you to eagerly bite into one and bust your tooth J ). 

David hoarding olives - December 2015

When I saw these Giant Chalkidikis in the store, I thought they they might be the same olives as David’s beloveds and that just the packaging might have changed, but when I got them home and compared them I see that they are a different color.  The size of the olives and pits are about the same, so perhaps they are the same variety of olive, just processed differently?  Being only an olive FAN and not an olive EXPERT I cannot know for sure. 

A tale of two olives

To me, both varieties have the same “meaty” quality, but the Giant Chalkidikis seem to have a bit more FLAVOR.  I also prefer the color of these new ones, as the Giant Greek Olives are always a bit of a scary green hue to me…  Overall, I like these Giant Chalkidikis just as much as I like the Giant Greeks.  They are certainly priced right – the jar is only $2.29, which is really cheap compared to the olives that we often buy at the “olive bars” at other grocery stores.

David:  “These are very good.  I think they are almost as good as the GIANT COLOSSAL GREEK OLIVES.  I mean, I still say those big round jar ones are the “king”, but these guys are great.  They are an excellent green olive.  They are colossal…  I think the flesh comes away from the pit a little bit more easily than the kind of colossal green olives you get at other grocery stores.  They are fleshy.  They are well behaved.  And they are tasty!  What’s not to like??!”

New year, new olives.  Same discerning palate.

 David and I had a big debate over what to SCORE these olives.  For me, I decided I would give them a tying score to last year’s Giant Greek Olives.  David was unsure if he should also make his numbers a tie, or if these olives should get a teeny tiny bit lower number…  Rating things is hard work, folks!!!  It is an awesome responsibility!!  After trying several more olives (which I do believe was a ploy to be able to gorge on olives…) David decide that he would give these Giant Chalkidikis the same score he gave the Giant Greek Olives.

In the end, this olive is a big winner.

Overall, we recommend you get some.  And eat ‘em.

Price:  $2.29

Rating:  5

Day 240 - Marinated Olive Duo with Lemon and Herbs

I have some fun news to share!!!

This project (reviewing one Trader Joe’s product per day every single day of 2015) began (obviously) on January 1, 2015.  Since that date, we have shopped in Trader Joe’s stores in 10 states and one district – in a total of 16 cities.  I have sent each and every one of the stores (except Dublin, Ohio, I have not written them yet but I will soon!!) a letter and a few of the business cards for this blog.  I also sent a letter to corporate.  Only the corporate office had written me back.  Of course, I was thrilled about the letter from corporate (I wrote about it and showed the letter on day 121).

Well guess what?  Another store wrote back!  Our closest Trader Joe’s is in Clarendon, VA and Rebekah from that store wrote me!  Look, she loves the blog!  J

   

WOW!  The Clarendon, VA TJ's wrote me back! 

She wrote on a Trader Joe’s greeting card – how appropriate (reviewed on day 10 http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-10-greeting-cards.html  ).  She mentions that her store has some beers not available at Bailey’s (which is our usual go-to store, even though Clarendon is closer…  We were customers at Bailey’s before they built the Clarendon store, plus parking is usually easier at Bailey’s.  But we really like the Clarendon store, too!)  We will go in and introduce ourselves and pick up some of the beer soon.

And guess what else?  REBEKAH INCLUDED A TJ’S GIFT CARD!  Wow!  So cool.  I am not sure how much it is worth because I have not taken it into a store yet.  But I shall. 

So that was very exciting for me.  The card came while I was out of town (at a stressful event) and my partner David opened it for me and read it to me over the phone.  What a treat!  Thanks Rebekah.

ALSO very exciting is this big news:  we finally found GREAT OLIVES at Trader Joe’s!  I was beginning to think it could not be done.  Oh but it can (and was) done.  With much success!

New product - Marinated Olive Duo...  Ahhh, music to my ears.

Here are the olives we tried from TJ’s before finding these gems:

Picholine Olives (day 32) 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/02/day-32-picholine-olives.html

Jumbo Pitted Greek Kalamata Olives (day 192)

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/07/day-192-greek-kalamata-olives-jumbo.html

Lucques Olives (day 76) 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/03/day-76-lucques-olives.html

The only olives we tried before and were happy with (not thrilled with, but happy enough) were the Jumbo Pitted Greek Kalamatas. 

But THESE NEW OLIVES beat those hands down.  These are on par with the olives we buy at the “olive bar” at another store!  These olives are the bomb!!!

Having been bitten before, I was nervous to invest in more Trader Joe’s olives.  But the $1.79 we spent on these puppies was money WELL SPENT, trust me.  Here is what we thought of them:

Marinated Olive Duo with Lemon and Herbs- Kalamata and Chalkidika (we hadn’t heard of this one) Olives from Greece

Me:  The packaging is a fail for me.  You have to cut open the vacuum sealed plastic bag and have a Tupperware-like container ready to decant the olives into.  I wish they came in some sort of re-sealable packaging.  And the current packaging is not even recyclable – boo. 

David decanting from the odd packing into fake Tupperware

But the taste of the olives is a-frickin’-mazing.  The green ones are for sure the best ones I have ever had from Trader Joe’s.  The purple/black ones are also very, very good.  They have a lemony and herb flavor.  Delicious!  They have pits, so be careful of your teeth when you bite into them, but I personally prefer olives with pits. 

David tries out a green one

The price, $1.79, is also super reasonable.  These olives are a WIN!  I just wish the packaging was better.  If it was, they would get a perfect 5 star rating from me.

David:  the green olives are meaty and delightful. The black ones are soft but flavorful.  In both cases they are so tasty that you want to keep sucking on the pit (Susan adds – that’s what she said…). 

This is the package you are looking for - go get some!

I would not ding them for the packaging as it is perhaps energy efficient and good for mother earth.  Perhaps the point is that you need to not put these in a Tupperware container, but instead put them in a BOWL and eat them all that night with some wine.  (Susan adds here – that would be like the time David ate a whole bag of Cheetos and vomited…  I think eating the whole package of these olives would be tooooo much in one night.)  David counters that he meant having FRIENDS over to share the olives and wine.   These are the perfect olives to set out in a bowl and eat before dinner while sipping wine. 

Price – $1.79

Rating – 4.75