SC - de-pitting olives?

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hey all from Anne-Marie

Stefan asks:
>I then proceeded to try to cut the olives off the seeds. Is there some
>trick to this??? I gave up after only a dozen or two olives and ended up 
>more with little chunks of olive rather than nice halves or the just
>empty 
>olives that I saw in the store. Surely you don't leave the seeds in for 
>most dishes?


funny you should ask :)
Martha Stewards show today included a segment on olives! they suggested
pitting them either by individually slitting them on one side and
squooshing out the pit, or the chef did a neat trick where he put the olive
on the cutting board and wacked it with the flat of his chef knife. Left a
big flat olive you could easily take the pit out. They kinda sprung back
into a vague olive shape after. kinda...

I was wondering why they didnt just use one of those cherry pitter gizmos
(I guess that depends on the size of the olive, of course....)

good luck! olives are one of Gods perfect foods....(real olives, not the
black things in cans from California)

- --AM