Monday, September 26, 2011

Is olive oil romantic?

I really need some sort of a mentor for this dating thing. Other women get flowers or jewelry or other fancy (and therefore expensive) gifts. How do they do it? Is is a question of picking the right man, or is it an expectation that she has from the start and makes sure she gets it? And how exactly does she go about getting it? I'm baffled by this because the gifts I get are very, very different.

This is what he has given me so far
(that I haven't already eaten)
My boyfriend brings me olive oil. Sometimes he brings other food like fancy pastas, herbed salts, or sauces, sometimes chocolate which is at least within the realm of romantic gift giving. But usually it's olive oil.

Not that there's anything wrong with olive oil, I love it. We have it for every meal in some way. Usually with a nice piece of schiaccata or some other kind of bread. Always on the pasta. For those of you thinking "Oh my God, she must be kidding. She doesn't eat bread and pasta for every meal!" yes, we really do eat that much bread and pasta. And we eat it with olive oil.

The olive oil here is wonderful. Some are spicy and some are mild. Some are filtered, some aren't. There are organic oils. And it seems that everyone produces olive oil. Vineyards typically sell olive oil as well as wine. Every house has at least a few olive trees around it. If you are fortunate you have enough olive trees to keep your family in olive oil for the year, with maybe enough left over to give a little to special friends. Everyone's oil tastes different which is part of the reason he keeps bringing me new bottles. Part of the flavor comes from the soil the trees grow in and part of it is the age of the trees. Part of the flavor comes from the press that's used to bring the oil out of the fruit. Filtering the oil changes the flavor too.

Everything I own has had olive oil dripped on it at some time. My computer, my ipod, my shoes, my purse. Every article of clothing has an olive oil stain on it somewhere. It's entirely possible that I have started sweating olive oil.

Maybe he's better at buying gifts for me than I'm giving him credit for. I do love olive oil and even though there's lots of it here, the good stuff isn't cheap. I just hope I don't become like Pavlov's dogs and start salivating every time he comes home and his bike bag is extremely heavy. Because I know it's either olive oil or wine. The bigger his smile is, the more likely it is that I am getting another bottle of olive oil. Yup, I think I need to add olive oil to my list of extremely romantic gifts to receive.

No comments:

Post a Comment