Cucumber Salad with Olives, Oregano, and Almonds

I love pickles. Actually, I love any form of cucumbers soaked in vinegar. When my best friend from high school told me she'd never tried a pickle, I made her eat one the first chance I got. Unfortunately, we were on a boat at the time, so now whenever she smells a pickle she gets seasick. It's okay, though. More pickles for me. When I found this recipe for cucumber salad in this month's Cook's Illustrated, I determined that I had to try it immediately. And, since I was planning a sort of greek salad themed brunch, it was the natural choice for a side dish. The fact that it involved the three greek salad elements missing from my frittata--cucumbers, olives, and oregano--was just gravy.

One of my favorite snacks is a super simplified version of this dish, which involves nothing more than thinly sliced cucumbers, rice wine vinegar, and salt.* Of course, Cook's Illustrated makes it much more sophisticated, with a simple cucumber drying process and a tempered version of the vinegar. It's certainly fussier than simply slicing cucumbers and dumping vinegar over them, but I think it's completely worth the extra few minutes it takes to reduce some vinegar and chop some herbs. The result was simply marvelous. I liked it even better out of the fridge a few hours later (which I suppose makes sense--I like my pickles fresh from the fridge too), so I suggest letting it chill for a half-hour or so before you serve it.