by Victoria Cosford
Over the coming months, it’s all about entertaining, summer days and outdoor living – and those big olive pots you see at the Grumpy Grandma’s stall are ideal. Fat manzanillas, mixed, wood-smoked, green, these hinterland-harvested olives need only to be tumbled out on to a platter. Want something a little different? If you haven’t done so already, try the semi-dried olives, which are offered in an assortment of spicy herby flavourings: Thai, Moroccan, Tuscan – and soon to come – Tim Stone tells me – Aussie bush flavours.
That’s the first bit of news he has for me as we stand chatting. The second bit is even more exciting. ‘We’ve been listening to our customers’, Tim says, ‘and for the last couple of months have been getting ready to move into glass.’ Gone, then, will be most of their plastic, although they will retain some takeaway containers for their bulk olives. As it is, Tim says, most of his customers reuse these containers anyway. Both these developments – the new dried olives; the glass – will happen soon.
Of course, the next stage of the olives is the actual oil, and it’s wonderful to see customers arrive with containers for the glorious cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil Tim sells in bulk. Given the monstrous cost of olive oil in supermarkets, it makes perfect sense to shop instead at his stall, where it’s $18 a litre, and local.
Aside from the regular extra virgin olive oil, there’s a chilli-infused one, a wood-smoked one and a lemon myrtle. The latter, we agree, is wonderful in a salad dressing, and already I’m planning to drizzle it over briskly blanched asparagus – or blend it with lemon juice, chopped garlic, ground cumin and a pinch of paprika to pour over a salad of Coopers Shoot tomatoes and cucumbers.
Grumpy Grandma’s Olives are at New Brighton Farmers Market every Tuesday from 8–11am, and at Mullumbimby Farmers Market every Friday from 7–11am.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
