February 9th & 10th, 2011: Sick and at home.
I realized today as I was at Safeway sorting through lemons, and wondering if I’d have the energy to make scratch chicken soup or be able to store said soup given the current fridge ‘space’ dilemma, that pickles for a year was actually going to more difficult than I initially thought. Most grocery stores have a pretty wide selection if all you’re looking for is generic pickles for sandwiches or apppy’s. But what I realized as I walked down the aisle and stopped directly in front of the 6-foot wide, 5-shelf selection that there were basically 3 types: Dill, Sweet, or Spicy. This, of course, also held the olives, peppers, capers and typical vegetable varieties but outside of this meager collection there wasn’t a whole lot to draw from, and quite frankly, eating a pickle out of a jar for a year just feels like cheating!
I think I actually may have shot myself in the foot thinking I could breeze my way through this but this is NOT going to be easy!
I’m also quite fascinated with the response from friends and family over the past few days… WHY PICKLES??? They said. WHY NOT!!! I said… Anyway, does it really matter? No, not really. Yes, there are so many bigger issues out there, and perhaps I have too much time on my hands – there are a hundred other things I could / should be doing and not so why am I studying pickles and eating them and reading / writing recipes for pickles? Not entirely sure except it’s given me something to write about – a subject, a project, a goal?
So with all of this going through my head at the grocery store, I grabbed a bag of lemons, the (small) jar of gherkins, settled for deli chicken soup, and cough drops and chocolate, (should have left the chocolate… ate the chocolate, thought about eating second bag of M&Ms… didn’t!) got into my car, started it, tried to drive over the cement meridian in front of me, of course in front of the nice big RED Fire Truck and Fire men parked beside me. Awkward. Drove home and heated up my chicken soup and made a toasty cheesy pickle sandwich, which, after yesterday’s nachos, cheese & Clausen’s baby dills felt like cheating.
What a predicament at only day 4 which led to the Pickle-mint!
It’s 11 P.M. and I’m eating ‘crack-pickles’ (Clausen’s – my absolute FAVORITE pickles…) because I’m not yet sick of pickles along with Swiss cheese (a perfect flavour marriage) and drinking tea when Chelsa gets a brilliant idea… Peppermint Tea and pickle juice TOGETHER!!! What to do??
Try it, of course! First sip – the taste buds are thinking… ‘What is this?? Do I like this? Not sure not sure… maybe maybe maybe… NO!! – BAIL! BAIL! BAIL!’
While not entirely bad, it certainly was not at all good and outside that, I'm not entirely sure how to descirbe it except please don't try this at home...Possibly if enough honey was added it may balance the salt and be okay. I’ve put on my list to make some minted pickles – maybe a sweet variety with fresh peas, pearl onions and roasted red peppers to serve with lamb chops. I think that could actually be a win!
I think that in the end it doesn’t really matter that I'm writing about pickles or what anyone thinks or says because I’ll write about what I want to regardless of what people think about it.
It’s my Pickle adventure and I’ve invited you all to come along for the ride and maybe try out a recipe or two, throw out some crazy paring suggestions and even if it’s only ever me then I’m okay with that too.
Okay… tomorrow will endeavor to be more creative… I’m going to bed.
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