We Can Pickle It!

I posted this photo earlier today while helping my mom canning dill pickles, and lots of people are asking for the recipe, so here it is! It's super easy and can be done in an afternoon if you have all the ingredients.

Dill Pickles
Makes 8 quarts

Raw pickles, whole, speared, sliced, or whatever, at room temperature
6 tbsp dill seed, divided
8 "toes" of garlic
1 tsp alum, divided
5 cups vinegar
8 cups water
3/4 cup salt
8 quart canning jars, with lids and rings


Pack pickles into quart jars. To each jar, add 3/4 tbsp dill seed, a "toe" of garlic, and about 1/8 of a tsp of alum. Prep your canning jar lids so they're ready to seal as soon as the jars are ready (My mom usually warms in a small pot of warm water on the stove, kept on low).

In a large saucepan, combine the water, vinegar, and salt and bring to a boil. Once the brine is boiling, pour into each jar to cover the pickles - keep the brine boiling so it's as hot as possible. The best way to do this is to set one jar at a time in a bowl or 4-cup glass measure and ladle the brine in. Then wipe the mouth of the jar dry with a paper towel, top with one of the prepped canning lids, and screw on the ring. Set the jars aside to cool, with a couple inches of space between each one. You're done! Listen for the lids to "pop" so that you know they're sealed and then you're safe to put them away. Let stand for a few days to let the flavors set in and then you can break them open and eat them.

If you have more than 8 quarts worth of pickles (we were able to stuff 15 jars with a half-bushel of fresh whole pickles) just add the dill, garlic, and alum to each jar as above and then multiply the brine accordingly.

Top 5: Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream

When it comes to sweets, I'm a candy girl. I love fruity treats like Skittles and SweeTarts and can eat a whole bag of Swedish Fish if I'm not careful. What I'm saying is, ice cream isn't my first choice when it comes to desserts. But if I am going to eat ice cream, forget about Ben & Jerry, all I want is Jeni's.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream is a local ice cream shop run by Jeni Britton Bauer, who creates wonderfully unique ice creams. Her flavors range from Ugandan vanilla to goat cheese with red cherries, and are made by hand in her Columbus, Ohio headquarters. There's a Jeni's scoop shop only about two miles away from my office, and let me tell you, it takes a lot of restraint not to go there for a bowl on every lunch break. Below are my top 5 favorite flavors, at least to date. Who knows what she's going to come up with next?

5. Salty Caramel
Initial notes of burnt sugar give way to mouth-watering saltiness. A perfect salty/sweet balance.
This is Jeni's signature flavor, creamy caramel with a salty finish. It's great, but there are much better things to come!

4. Black Currant Frozen Yogurt
Puréed black currants blended with fresh cream and naturally tart yogurt tempered by a bit of sweetness. The rich, full, complex berry flavor melts with the tang of organic yogurt.

Black currant is one of my favorite flavors of anything (tea, jam, candy, it doesn't matter).  It's popular in England but hard to find in the US - except at Jeni's, where it shows up every summer. It's wonderfully rich and tart, perfect for hot summer days.

3. Dark Chocolate Peppermint
A full-flavored, toothsome, dark chocolate ice cream with potent Oregon peppermint (essential oil). Flavor bursts open and cuts through very cleanly.  A classic holiday chocolate and mint.

Oooh, this is one of the most decadent flavors ever created. It's so rich it's hard to eat much at a time. I found a pint at my local grocer after the holidays (score!) and it took me over a month to eat the whole thing.

2. Sweet Corn and Black Raspberry
A sublime summer match - initial hits of milky sweet corn give way to the floral nose of sweet 
black raspberry.


When I was in Paris a few years ago we stopped at a lovely ice cream stand just across the river behind the Notre Dame, where I friend of mine ordered sweet corn ice cream. I was intrigued - she told me vegetable ice cream was popular in countries like China and she hadn't been able to get her hands on any since. When I heard Jeni's had summer sweet corn and raspberry flavor, I had to try it. It sounds bizarre but the creamy corn flavor is delicious.

 1. Riesling Poached Pear Sorbet
Light but surprisingly rich with pure pear flavor and a pleasant grainy texture. Notes of sweet Riesling wine shine on the finish.

This might very well be the most perfect ice cream ever created. Caramel is nice, and dark chocolate is tasty, but you can't beat this pear sorbet. It's so fresh and light and flavorful that you think you've just bitten into a fresh Bartlett pear. And then, as the fruit melts on your tongue, you get a lovely Riesling wine aftertaste. I'm not even a huge wine fan but this flavor is absolutely divine. I can't wait to get a scoop the next time I'm at the shop!


Images via Jenis.com and Salty Caramel blog.

Baby's Breath

The following is a short story that I recently wrote. It's still in its early stages and may need some editing. 

Standing near the water's edge he zips his jacket and burrows his hands deep in his pockets. The waves rush at the shore and crash loudly as if begging him to jump in. They don't seem to understand why he doesn't, and persistently continue, hoping this time will be different. It isn't.

Experience

I was helping my parents with yardwork the other day when my father told me - yet again - that what we were doing was something I needed to write about. "This is definitely an experience," I said. "You don't know what an experience is yet," he told me. I wanted to argue, but as I thought about it, he's right. I'm only 22 years old, the most exciting things that have happened to me are a couple of school trips overseas. In his lifetime he's been married twice, gone through multiple jobs, raised three kids, lost his parents ... in comparison, my life is uneventful.

Many non-fictionists write about things they've done or places they've been, like the examples in Robert Root's book (The Nonfictionist's Guide: On Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction) about the seafarer in Antarctica or seeing someone ready a copy of his novel on the subway. Root himself talked about all the writing he did while on a writer's wilderness retreat. I'm an average college student with a limited disposable income. I can't afford to go on excursions just to stimulate my writing. How can I compete with authors taking a year to go to Madrid or some other exotic destination and write about their observations?

But even as I say that I am reminded of Garrison Keillor's article in a recent issue of National Geographic. It was beautifully written and engaging, and was about county fairs of all things. If you're a good enough writer you can make anything exciting. Maybe if I tried I could even make my summer doing nothing exciting. I could talk about the fresh vegetables we char on the grill for dinner, the young deer flicking their tails in the backyard as they lick the salt block, or the sun beating down as we watch my niece's t-ball game. I can't imagine there is a lot of people who would want to read about all that, though.