Back in our freewheeling days Mr. Slippers and I spent many lost weekends in New Orleans. I’m grateful, because it will probably be a long time before we can get back. Our vacations now are mostly road trips with fast food and The Wonderpets on repeat play on the portable DVD player. On just such a road trip through Williams, CA last month we visited the newly remodeled Granzella’s. If you like olives, you really must go there. They KNOW olives. The intrepid Mr. Slippers, a huge olive fan, found this amongst the many delicacies on Granzella’s shelves, and waxed nostalgic for NOLA.
So, we bought it. And in honor of the superbowl foodfest this weekend, I made a muffuletta for Mr. Slippers.
I wouldn’t *exactly* call this a recipe, but if you can get your hands on a good jar of muffuletta olive mix, you can make one too.
First, get a round loaf of soft Italian bread. If, like me, you live in an area where this is not easy to find, make one. I used a Nigella Lawson recipe for soft white dinner rolls (from her book FEAST) and formed all of the dough into one big, round loaf.
Slice the loaf in half, horizontally so that you have two discs of bread. Then take a large spoon and hollow out a wide, shallow cavity in each disc.
Then drizzle some olive oil all over those discs, follow that up with a few splashes of juice from the olive mix. Next fill the hollowed out areas with generous amounts of olive mix.
On The disc that was the bottom of your loaf of bread, begin to layer hard salami, deli ham, thin sliced mortadella (or if like me, you can’t find mortadella in your town some uncured bologna), and provolone cheese. Here’s how I started.
When your meat and cheese is all layered up, gently put your sandwich together, being careful not to spill the olive mix. When it’s assembled, press down on the top of the loaf, you want it to soak up that olive mix. Now you’re ready to slice and serve this bad boy.
Nothing beats a *real* New Orleans muffuletta , but this sure does scratch the itch.
Bunny Slippers 
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