Food, The Old-Fashioned Way

Yesterday I finally got around to making pickles. Twelve cukes had been staring me down for a few days and I had to get to them before the fruit flies swarmed all over the kitchen. I've followed the tradition of making Violette's bread and butter pickles for several years now. Violette, now 98, is my husband's grandmother and he raves about how whenever he finished mowing Gram's lawn as a teenager she'd fry him up a hamburger and bring a jar of pickles up from the basement. They are sliced thin and you pile them on with a fork.

Making Gram's pickles is not something I involve my girls in yet, other than helping to pick the cukes. (This year's garden wasn't so fruitful, so the cukes came from another local garden that had a surplus.) The glass jars, the steaming water, and the bubbling apple cider vinegar aren't a great combo for cooking with kids. 

This year, I saved the pickling for my toddler's naptime and unfortunately she didn't nap. I had salted the cukes overnight so I was committed and my crazy girl Julia was getting into things left and right. I finished moments before I had to pick up Ava from preschool.

Okay, it might not have been the canning experience that I wanted -- where I'm mindful of the process and taking pride in doing what generations before me have done. But at least the pickles taste good and will last us through the winter.