When we moved to smaller place, we soon realized we had way too much stuff. Half of it is now in a big outbuilding at my wife’s mom’s house in Rochester, near Centralia.
We went there Sunday to visit our stuff and eat too much at mom’s. Our other purpose in going was to get some cucumbers from an organic grower called Rising River Farms. We called the day before and left a message. The return call let us know we had to pick up our pickle cukes at the Olympia Farmer’s Market. We did that on the way to Rochester but later drove out to the farm just to look at it along the banks of the Chehalis River.
We showed up at moms with our load of cucumbers, a big bush of dill and some garlic. We told her we did not know where to find one critical element in the family recipe, grape leaves. She looked at us like we were from another planet. Her garden has two long rows of Island Belle grapes in full flower. We grabbed a handful and tossed them into the car with the other parts for pickling.
Last season, we did sauerkraut. It was very good and a big hit with friends and family except for brother Tim who later admitted he gave his jar to a buddy. Tim has a thing about cabbage in any form. Onions too. He is an odd duck. He is not getting any pickles.
We have a four-gallon crock, the bona-fide type from Ohio Stoneware that make would make antiquers drool if they spotted one in a Snohomish shop. Or they could just buy a new one…
We have been counseled on our recipe by several members of my wife’s family when they learned we were pickling. The fundamental advice: make sure you put in the grape leaves. There were claims that this addition makes the pickle crunchier. We will see.
This is actually our second rodeo with pickling cucumbers. Four years ago, we came home with a box of medium size cukes and put them in the garage for a few days because other things in life intervened. When we did set up to pickle and can the load, the cukes were a bit soft. We filled the mason jars with the limp dills anyway. That is how we learned that they do not firm up in the jar. A friend suggested we make relish out of them.
This experience make us timid about doing it again soon be we finally got over it. This time, they are going in a crock and not Mason jars.
When we were kids, oldest brother Mike got his first job at Archie Pompeo’s pickle factory in Salmon Creek, halfway between Burien and White Center (now part of Burien). Archie grew his crop on the gently sloping hillside along Ambaum Boulevard. Mike’s job was to harvest the cucumbers and prepare them for pickling. He washed and trimmed the cukes and them dropped them into big wooden casks filled with brine in a long shed at the top of the hill. That was entire process, the old fashioned way.
In another column, we will report on the outcome of our pickling enterprise. If you have never done any pickling, I enourage you to try it. It is fun and you get to say you did it!
