Spicy Family Secret

I love vinegar. I love intense spice. Therefore, I love a good pickle. I'm not saying that I don't like sweet pickled items, like oshinko, but when it comes to cukes they've gotta have bite.

The culinary visionary in my family, if there ever was one, was my late Aunt Ellen. Until she passed away, her house was where every family holiday took place and she usually made 80-100% of the food I remember her making pigs in a blanket for appetizers and making sure that I ate some right out of the oven because that's when they were the best. Even on non-holidays when we went there to swim in their pool, I looked forward to investigating the snack drawer to repeatedly find an un-ending supply of Goldfish crackers. And she always had Total cereal in the cupboard; I was always amazed at how one bowl gave you 100% of every mineral and vitamin. Basically, I associated her house with food, and I really love eating.

In my opinion though, her crowning achievement were her home-made garlic pickles. They are probably what's responsible for my love of vinegar and spice in general. Also, they make the Vlasic stork shit his pants and run away in tears.

This actually happened.

It's not just me that likes them, the whole family does, particularly my mother. Over the years, other members of the family have made them as well however my Uncle Jack is probably the only true successor to the production process. Besides the pickles he also makes great pies and coconut cake from scratch, you know... like hand-shaving coconuts and everything. So this past 4th of July when the family gathered at his house for the annual crab feast, I got him to fork over the pickle recipe. I figured it was about time that I do the family a favor and carry on the tradition. Of course, I never got around to making them this summer. I kept saying to myself that I had to go to the farmer's market and buy "special cucumbers" for it, which basically translates into "I'm lazy".



Fast forward to the holiday season, and as usual I was over-thinking what to do for gifts for my family. As a coworker was asking me for suggestions on what SHE should do for presents, I remembered the pickle recipe I had been sitting on for five months. Home-made gifts are awesome because most of the time you're not spending more than $5 per person and no one can call you out on it, lest they look like an ungrateful asshole. The only problem is that the pickles are supposed to ferment/cure for one month and by the time I got around to buying all of the supplies, Christmas was only two weeks away. That meant I would be giving out incomplete gifts that needed to remain refrigerated for another two weeks, which is kinda lame... but oh well.

Not to sound like a bitch, but it was a lot of work, especially peeling roughly 75 cloves of garlic. The other thing that sucked was realizing I didn't make enough brine after only filling half of the jars and having to put everything on hold for another 2 hours until I could make more. Also, the jars were too big and there weren't enough pickles in each to hold them tightly in place, resulting in everything not being 100% submerged in the brine. But in the end everything seemed to turn out OK and I laid the 12 jars in the fridge to hibernate.

After a month of waiting though, tonight I finally got to taste the fruits of my labor!

Technically I should have waited until tomorrow, but I'm throwing caution to the wind.

All I can say is: "I done good".

I think the tiny cucumbers were a great choice because they were slightly more crisp then I remember my aunt's being. Between the garlic and jalapeno, these things slightly burn on the way down, which is fucking awesome. The amount of flavor is immense and the after taste is something that I want to linger in my mouth as long as possible. The only thing I would do differently next time is pack way more into each jar and maybe some bell peppers or something else like that.

Unfortunately out of the 12 jars I made, I only kept one for myself, so it looks like I will be making some more very soon. However, I can rest easy knowing that my pickle recipients will be enjoying some of the most amazing pickles they'll ever eat.

"And if you don't like my pickles... I don't want to know you."