It’s Labor Day Weekend, and the madcap irresponsible season of summertime grilling and picnicking and avoiding the kitchen is beginning to wind down. Sigh. I always enjoy handing Mr. Friday the platter of meats, while I retire to a shady observation post on the back porch with a glass of cheap white wine in hand. The party is almost over.
We have been invited out to a neighborhood potluck, to gather with old friends on this transition weekend as we ooze warily from the languid summer into the frenetic fall. We will be catching up on children, school years, new jobs, new neighbors and what we did on our summer vacations. It is the annual rite before the air begins to cool and the leaves change color. How suddenly summer draws to a close, even as we tire of the relentless heat and fashion challenges. I am looking forward to wearing blue jeans again. Maybe it is time for a change.
Usually I bring potato salad to a potluck. Or I tote the always appreciated, but hardly imaginative, plate of brownies. This weekend I am bringing a couple of jars of quick pickles, the new foodie rage. They are simple to prepare and are crunchy and crispy and slightly addictive, with many fewer calories than brownies. Which is a good thing since I would like to be sure that last year’s jeans still fit.
When I was little our family patronized a small local butcher, whose shop was just a couple of walkable blocks away from our house. During the summer, one of my chores was to walk to Benny’s Butcher Shop for my mother. While he ground the beef as requested, I was allowed to get a pickle from the large wooden pickle barrel. There were tongs available for the health conscious to use for snagging their pickles, but I am pretty sure that I remember waiting for Benny to turn around so I could stealthily plunge my arm down into the dark aromatic brine and wriggle my dirty paw amid the floating pickles until I selected the perfect one. Who could resist? Then I would stroll home, the package of ground beef tucked under one arm, munching the great sour dill pickle, now wrapped in a twist of white butcher’s paper, with a trail of pickle juice still coursing down my other arm. Toward the end of summer I would make that walk home, anticipating the advent of a new school year.
Another consideration for making these quick pickles is that though they have a relatively short shelf life, you will be consuming just fresh vegetables and herbs, salt, vinegar, and a dash of sugar. I have a jar of pickles in the fridge, as I am sure you do, too. This is what my commercially produced pickle jar label reads as its list of ingredients: cucumbers, water, salt, crushed red pepper, vinegar, garlic, spices, calcium chloride, 1/10 percent sodium benzoate as a preservative, natural flavors, turmeric. I bought them in June. It does give one pause.
I tried some a couple of these recipes using English seedless cucumbers, and a handful of Kirby cukes, but you can pickle quite a variety of vegetables, depending on your tastes and your eye for color. The jewel tones of radishes, carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, onions, peppers and even watermelon will appeal to all the other potluck diners, and you’ll come home with containers that have been licked clean. It was a great summer, after all.
Here is a video that will get you in the mood: https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000003811166/another-reason-to-party.html
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017680-cheaters-pickles
https://markbittman.com/fridge-pickles-your-way/
https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/how-to/article/how-to-pickle
https://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/07/easiest-fridge-dill-pickles/
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/quick-pickles-recipe.html
https://food52.com/recipes/3804-quick-pickles
“But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.”
– John Tobias
https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/verse/watermelon.html
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