Pickled, But Not Poxed

It was so far merely a false alarm. The 3 odd red bumps are still present, but the massive outbreak that is chicken pox has not yet happened. Whew! Still, the incubation period is 21 days and we’re just 14 days from the exposure, so still keeping fingers and toes crossed. Oliver seems oblivious to any pending doom. He is chipper as ever, melting all who know him with his dashing six-toothed smile, his beaming blue eyes, and that transluscent white hair.

With a slight chill in the air these last few weeks, instincts direct us to that ancient Autumnal event, the canning of the year’s excess harvest in preparation for the long Winter months ahead. For me, this means it was once again time to prepare my (in)famous pickled veggies. So, on Saturday morning, the family rose and dashed off to the farmer’s market in Union Square. It was a great day at the market with many bustling stands and we bought the most beautiful fresh baby carrots and a rainbow of pickling peppers, as well as garlic, radishes, pickling cukes, green beans, wax yellow beans, and pearl onions. We then spent the day pickling in Hoboken at the lovely home of a friend from work and his wife. We four (Olie offered little help this year) spent hours trimming, snipping, peeling, cleansing, and stuffing veggies into jars, then boiling the secret vinegar recipe and, later, the bottled veggies already stewing in their brine. It was a long, hot, and laborious process, but some 7 hours later we had nearly 60 bottles of decidedly delectable looking pickles, including 2 deli-sized jars (a first for me). For those who end up partaking, see if you can detect this year’s secret new spice…

Pickling is truly a labor of love and I relish (pardon the pun) the project each year. Pickling, for me, touches on a spirituality and artistry, a missing link to the land, and I love its tangible and appetizing outcome, very much in stark contrast to so many modern endeavors. Come to think of it, raising a son touches similar chords of spirituality and artistry, though the curing of the product certainly takes many more than a couple of weeks. And, while I preserved no olives in this year’s batch, I still find new insight into why I was drawn to that name for him. So, this year’s peck of pickled veggies is dedicated to my young son, Oliver, as he rounds the corner to his 11th month. Welcome back to Autumn everyone!