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Olive Memories

Cleaning up my fridge recently, I found an almost empty jar of kalamata olives (my favorite kind) that was promptly used. That jar of olives brought childhood memories of my aunt's exceptional olive pickle. She always had some in her pantry and knew how much I loved it. If I was visiting her home, it would be brought out to the dining table without fail and I could not have enough of it. The steaming rice and dal with the pickle on the side is perfection meeting happiness for me as a kid. This was the thing I could count on amid the chaos of the world, the arbitrary things that adults expected me to do and the pointlessness of most growing up. It was all this useless work to start the cycle of joyless things like employment and marriage. 

My aunt is old and frail now. Last time I met her was over a decade ago and she had already started to decline. There is no one who knows to make her olive pickle and its not something anyone cares for anymore. I did have a meal at her house when I was last there but it was not like childhood. They live in a modern flat now - there is no cavernous, ill-lit pantry hiding wonderful secrets anymore. Everything is in it's proper shelf and easily visible under the track lights. There are many good and useful things there but no home made olive pickle. I missed it but did not mention it and I am sure she was aware of its absence at the table. I want to try my hand and making the Jolpai er Achar (olive pickle) from how I recall the taste. My aunt has been struggling with memory for sometime and I don't want to ask her for a recipe that she may struggle to recall.

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