My kids love pickles—not the sweet, syrupy Gherkins, but
those walloping plump Peter-Piper-picked-a
peck-of-pickled-pucker-power sours, the Kosher kind that look like green,
embryonic blimps preserved in enough vinegar and dill to turn your lips outside
in.
We buy them in barrel-shape crocks and keep them on the top
shelf of the refrigerator with other essentials, like milk and orange juice.
There used to be a rule about asking “mother” to help a child
poking around to pick his preferred pickle.
But, like getting bedtime drinks of water for our brood, that routine got old
fast. “Get your own!” I relented.
Jennifer usually pokes for her pickles with a toothpick. She likes the popping sensation of piercing
through the skins with a factory-honed wood splinter. That’s why her siblings all think a proper
pickle comes with three or four holes punched in the top.
Stacee is more practical.
She uses a fork to efficiently dangle her dills. Tines down, she studies her prey and harpoons
it in one stroke.
But Matthew, the little guy who contributes his own measure
of three-year-old vinegar to our pickle- pecking pack, is a prehensile pickle
poker. Dill pickles never stay Kosher for long at our house. Pushing a bar stool over to the fridge, Matt resembles the proverbial
monkey raiding the cookie jar. He puts his whole grimy fist in the pickle crock.
And, sometimes, he can’t get it out.
Pickle flavor perpetually permeates his dimpled hand. Heaven help him if he ever tries sucking his
thumb—he'll be instantly hooked!
Strangely enough, with all this pickle picking, none of my
kids likes dills on hamburgers. Last
time I took Matthew to McDonalds, he ordered a “Big Mac,” without the meat.
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| We buy our pickles in crocks! |
