Tapenade on Tapas Weekend

A few years ago, my husband and I began what we called Finger Food Fridays, which soon morphed into Saturdays so I could spend some time in the kitchen.

It is a chance to eat some snack-y things like potato chips and nachos, along with healthier fare like raw vegetables and fresh fruit.

We're having a heatwave here in the Midwest. It's muggy and stifling and sweat rolls off your forehead when you do the simplest things like mince garlic or do laundry.

No one in their right mind would even cook on a grill. We declared a tapas weekend.

The word "tapas" got me thinking of tapenade. This provencal specialty gets its name not from olives as you might suspect, but from the Provençal word for capers, "tapenas." Some call tapenade the "black butter of Provence."

Apparently recipes differ from region to region. Some regions add cognac. Anchovies are a fairly typical ingredient, but I find that capers deliver enough salt for my palate.

I prefer my tapenade to be somewhat coarse, as opposed to finely ground, and I make it with about a cup of black olives, a third cup of green olives, a dash of lemon peel, some roasted garlic and a few capers. I sometimes forget to add a dash of olive oil, but that usually makes no difference.

It's the perfect taste for a hot weekend. I usually just serve it on toasted baguette, but it's too hot to toast anything this weekend. So we opted for fresh slice of French rolls. Leftovers were eaten the next day with sun-dried tomato crostini with artichoke and Parmesan topping. No wine, no alcohol of any sort. It's too hot for anything but iced tea and ice water, both with lemon.

Leftover tapenade can also be mixed into a green salad, a pasta dish, or into tuna or chicken sandwich spread.