I’m starting to see little cucumbers appear in stores, so it must be getting toward pickle time.
I’ve never made pickles. I’ve thought about it many times. I’ve just never gotten around to it. I was close last year, but then there was the great Mason jar shortage of 2020, so the thought passed.
I even have a recipe I’d love to try some day. Actually, I have two recipes. Somewhere.
Many years ago, an uncle, who was of Polish ancestry, gave me his family recipe for dill pickles. He also passed along a recipe for hot mix pickles that I really like. I used to love his pickles. The hot mix was probably my introduction to spicy food as a child. But the dills… they were amazing. True Polish dill pickles with lots of garlic. I loved them.
A liked them so much, he gave me the recipe. He didn’t often hand out his family recipes, but he gave it to me. Maybe it’s because I liked the pickles so much. Although it may have had something to do with me enjoying one of his Polish dills with a nice cold glass of milk. He always seemed quite amazed that I had the ability to combine pickles and milk and survive. My stomach could handle a lot when I was younger.
In any case, every so often I come across the recipe and decide I’m going to give it a try. Then I get distracted by… well… life, and never seem to make it happen. One of these years, I really do have to give it a try. I miss his pickles.
So I may just get myself in pickle mode one of these days. But then it becomes, what pickle to make. The polish dills would be on the list. But good homemade mustard pickles are pretty high on my list too. And those hot mix would be nice.
So now I’ve gone from making one type of pickle to three. At least three. But first I have to find the recipe.
