As a fairly recent homeowner, I’m still cautious about what I’ll allow in my kitchen. Years of living in city apartments has made me a minimalist in almost all areas of my life, but the kitchen in particular. I spend a lot of time there cooking and planning, and over time I’ve sort of trained myself to keep things simple and orderly. Pretty much everything that lives in my kitchen is either an essential like pots and pans, or a multitasker, like my Nutribullet.
So, when a friend gave me a Corico Olive Boat and pit port, I was pretty skeptical. How often does one need a special bowl for olives? I assumed I would end up dropping it at a charity thrift shop after it sat in a cupboard untouched for a few years.
How wrong I was.
I’m an unapologetic snacker. I like a snack plate for lunch. I’m all in on “girl dinner,” which my mom used to call a “dab dinner” when I was a kid. A little dab of this, a little dab of that on a plate or nestled in a bowl is pretty much my ideal meal at home. What does the olive boat have to do with girl dinners and snacks? As I discovered, a lot.
The first time I used the olive boat, I threw a tub of olives (with pits) from the grocery store deli onto the kitchen table as a snack while my husband made us a proper dinner. It was super easy to just pop the pits in the port in the middle, as opposed to pulling out a ramekin, or just setting them on the side of the plate (which I honestly find kind of gross). When it came time to clean up, I just upended the port and dumped the pits in the trash. Because nothing is better than an easy clean up, I was hooked, especially once I realized that the olive boat is also dishwasher safe.
The olive boat is sleek and minimalist, and would most likely fit in with most decor styles. It’s made from a crisp white porcelain that feels high quality and has some heft to it. It’s not heavy to pick up, but if it’s sitting on a table the port won’t tip over if it’s jostled. All of this is great news, because besides making it my personal snack dish, I’ve used it when a few friends came over to binge Bridgerton. Set on my coffee table, it looked chic, with a nice olive mix on one side and nuts on the other. The gross pits disappeared quickly, along with a few toothpicks and cheese ends.
Far from gathering dust in my cupboard, the olive boat has been my constant snacking companion. It’s the perfect receptacle for shrimp cocktail and those pesky tails, cherry pits, nuts that need shelling, orange seeds and peels — the list of messy snacks goes on and on.
Tanya Edwards is a freelance writer based in coastal New England. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Refinery29, CNN, Better Homes & Gardens, Food Network and more.