The Olive Mill

I spent a fun couple hours today with my friend Esther going to the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I've been a couple times, Amy took me out there the first time for Mothers day a few years back and I've run out there a couple other times looking for gifts and thus the trip today. I needed hostess gifts to take to Prescott this weekend. I've been invited for a sewing/teaching weekend with Denise and Linda. We are going to be staying at a gals house and working on a few projects but mostly teaching the P3 method of applique and a couple other little things I teach at work. I expect it will be mostly alot of socializing with some fun gals and we are going up to teach but I needed something to take since we are staying in their home and they are feeding us too! They sent us the "schedule" and the only thing on the schedule was where we were eating b-fast, lunch and dinner each day! I guess we'll be eating and eating ! So thus the trip out to the Olive Mill. It's a fun place to go and they do tours of how they process the olives and oil so there are alot of tourists that go there. It's about 20 minutes southeast of my house so Esther met me and we went out together since it was her first time. She was a great navigator as I never remember where I"m going in Queen Creek since I don't go often and every time I go it's built up and changed. We looked at all the fun things and there are all kinds of test tries. Every kind of olive you can imagine ( locally grown right there) Olive oils, vinegars, tempanades, and dipping sauces to name a few of the fun things. We then had lunch at their little cafe.



This is Esther and I ( I've blogged about her before as we worked quite a few years ago together, so now you can put a face with the name) And I miss her at work, every time I have to sharpen the pencils I think of Esther ! She always kept them sharp ! And every time we clean out the back rooms when the boss is gone I think of Esther, she always made me laugh as she'd say "get rid of this sh_ _ !" She's also the one who taught Ellen and I how to make authentic tamales !

So we shared a lunch, yummy tasty homemade soup with wonderful bread and of course you see olives are served everywhere !

And this wonderful vegetarian sandwich, and more olives, ohhhh the flavor !

So after test tries and lunch we left there stuffed, but what a fun couple hours !

Here is what I came home with to take, it's Garlic Parmesan Crema, perfect for spreading on panini's or a dipping sauce! It's wonderful !