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ONFESSION TIME:
I have been obsessed
with pickles for my
entire life. That’s not
the confession yet, I’ll get to that.
Some time around elementary
school, my mother asked me what
I’d like as my annual “big” Chanukah gift as we meandered up
and down the aisles of Costco (undoubtedly gathering ingredients
for a dinner party). My eyes landed
on a two-gallon jar of sour dill
pickles. “That,” I said. And then we
just sort of progressed from there.
The big confession is this: I
never pickled anything myself
until 2010, on the counter of a
studio apartment in Brooklyn
(yeah, duh, I know), after many
self-pep-talks and weeks of research. Here’s the truth: It’s really
not that hard. I made way too big
a deal out of making my first pickles at home, and chances are that
some of you are, too. The great
news is that once you’ve pickled
a few things, completely ruined a
few batches and had some unexpected successes, you can pretty
much pickle anything. So, let’s
talk about how to pickle anything.
First, what you really need is
a spirit guide. If you don’t have a
master pickler in your life (why
EAT
THIS
HUFFINGTON
10.13.13
JAMES BAIGRIE/GETTY IMAGES
C
Everyone always wants
to start with cucumbers... In
my experience, cucumbers are
some of the hardest things to
pickle... My best advice: start
with some other stuff first.”
don’t we all get to have one of
those?), a book will do. I started
with two, and they have rarely
led me astray:
• The Joy of Pickling: 250 FlavorPacked Recipes for Vegetables for
All Kinds of Produce from Garden
or Market by Linda Zeidrich
• Wild Fermentation by Sandor
Ellix Katz
The Joy of Pickling has become
my pickling Rosetta Stone. Anytime I bring home some strange