"olives" news and stories

Had a party lately? If you served a bowl of olives, chances are you've got leftovers. Here, some creative ways to use them.

Todd English and Erica Wang. Photo: David X Prutting, PatrickMcMullan.com

What do you do when you and your celebrity chef husband-to-be call it quits just days before your extravagant wedding at an upscale New York City hotel?

If you're Erica Wang, the recently ex-ed fiancee of Todd English, you put on a chic black dress and party it up with your family and friends, the New York Post reports. English is the previously married 48-year-old owner of the Olives restaurants and star of season three of the reality-TV show "Top Chef."

Wang and English called off the wedding days before it was to take place at the St. Regis Hotel, and since several guests had already made the trip to New York for the event -- which gossip blog Gawker reports English had already paid for -- the would-be bride and "about 150 of Wang's closest friends and family packed into the posh party space 20 stories above Fifth Avenue," the Post reported.

"Everybody is having a fantastic time," a source told the Post. "People are dancing their butts off."

Grilled lamb chops with olive tapenade. Photo: Erica George Dines Photography

It is hard to believe that summer is officially coming to an end and football season is here. We always enjoy grilling in the fall -- cooler temperatures set in and you can bring the party outside once again.

Fall temperatures generally mean heartier meals, but that is all the more reason to keep your grill out until winter sets. Take advantage of fall's ingredients and keep the grill going.

Richer meats like lamb chops become some of our favorite weekend meals and are surprisingly easy to grill.

Learn more about Jennifer Iserloh at skinnychef.com, and read her exclusive Slashfood blogs every Monday and Friday.

Last Saturday morning, after coffee, and in search of inspiration, I opened the cabinets where I store odds and ends from second-hand stores and little shops I've encountered on my travels. A smooth wooden olive spoon from California caught my eye. I admired its delicate handle, topped with a round perforated scoop to lift olives from their brining liquid.

Olives, a staple of ancient Greece cuisine, are tasty eaten on their own but they can also be a healthy and delicious way to add flavor to old American standbys like sandwiches and pasta. I love olive spread or tapenade since it's flavorful and full of nutritional benefits like iron and Vitamin E. You won't find those in mayo or ketchup. I make this tapenade with extra virgin olive oil since nothing can beat the fruity, rich taste that comes from the first cold press of the fruit of the olive tree. "Light" olive oils go through additional processing, such as filtering and refining, and tend to be lighter in flavor, but it still has the same fat content and calories -- 14 grams per tablespoon at 120 calories -- as extra virgin.

Get Jennifer's Orange Olive Tapenade recipe after the jump.

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Happy Halloween! This bento with a thousand eyes from Los Dragonnes' Reiko's Bento Lab is the most excellently creepy boxed lunch I've seen yet. The bloodshot eyeballs are tuna and rice with olives, the grim greyish ones are tofu-turkey balls and the alien-looking orange eyes are smoked salmon.

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