Ocean Olives

A creamy reading of the Provençal pasta de aceitunas, built strictly from three components: cream cheese, black olives stuffed with anchovy, and lemon. The cream cheese is the emulsifying medium and textural softener, pulling the salt-and-umami load of the olive-and-anchovy filling into a generous, spreadable paste. The classical Provençal tapenade is intense and oily; this version is rounder, lighter- bodied, more contemporary in form — a Mediterranean terrine of olive umami and anchovy salt held in a fresh-cream cheese matrix and sharpened with lemon. The anchovy is the structural element —without it the spread loses its sea-bass note and flattens.