Before there's food, there are olives. Before the first course arrives, before the wine is poured, before anyone has even looked at a menu, someone puts a bowl of azeitonas temperadas on the table. That's how it works in Portugal. That's how it's always worked.

Avó Leonor kept a jar of these in her kitchen at all times. A clay pot tucked in the cool corner near the window, olives floating in azeite with whole garlic cloves and sprigs of dried oregano. She'd fish them out with a wooden spoon for anyone who walked through her door. Visitors, neighbors, the postman. Everyone got olives.

This isn't a recipe so much as a ritual. You take good olives. You bathe them in good oil. You add garlic, herbs, maybe a curl of lemon peel. Then you wait. The waiting is the work. The marinating transforms plain preserved olives into something you can't stop eating, something that makes you reach for bread to soak up the oil, something that makes you pour another glass of wine because what else would you do?

At Mesa da Avó, these are on the table before guests sit down. No explanation needed. Everyone knows what to do. Pão, azeite, azeitonas, sempre. Bread, olive oil, olives, always. This is how we begin.