Pickles, Pickles, Pickles, and God's love of Spice

I shouldn't have so many favourite things. I feel like Steve Martin in the Jerk. "I don't need anything!!.... but this jar of pickles.... I don't need anything else... but this Hofner bass..." It's good to have hobbies(if you can include eating pickles as one of those). Back to it, when we were up in Rancho Cucamonga we came across a pickle brand that I've never tried. It's McClure's Pickles and they're way too expensive, but very good. The only type they had were the Spicy flavour, but they have to be the spiciest spicy pickle that I've purchased.

Through thorough pickle shopping I've found that most pickles labeled spicy have to be sweet as well. While the corporate know-it-all's believe that's the only way someone would buy a spicy pickle they've missed an entire market of insane pickle consumers(yes, double meaning... buy consumer and eat consume.. eh eh? *sigh*). While pickles are one of the best side foods that God has ever allowed man to create they should not be paired up with anything sweet. By making them sweet you now have a Dessert pickle and no one wants a dessert pickle... if you do then you are no better than Hitler. BUT, that's the only way you can get a hot pickle!!! Wickle's Pickles, Famous Dave's Hot(but Sweet for the masses) Pickles, and some pickle jar we left in Texas that we got from Gruene, TX.

God heard my prayers though, and sent a message down to McClure's to stop goofing around and mass market your pickle recipe. Fortunately, they listened and are now being stocked at Williams-Sonoma for the sum of a small purebreed animal. Since I didn't want to take responsibility for buying a potentially horrible pickle(well, only sweet truly fall into this category) Leah bought some while she was out Macy's shopping(run by sweet pickle eaters). Had to wait till we got back in the desert to try them, but it was worth the wait! When you open the bottle for the first time, they have stuffed the top of the jar with the heads of lesser pickles; like a trophy wall to say "Hey, we're so awesome that even the pickles that don't pass our standards we remove the good parts and present them to you as a prize". That, or they're in there so you can try a small bite of pickle before diving into the greatness of spears. So I had one of those and was very impressed with the nice burn provided by these pickles! It's the hottest pickle that I've ever had - and that's a good thing! After consuming the trophy pickles, I noticed that a habanero was floating around in the brine. Yay for giving us a clue as to where the heat comes from! When I'm done with these pickles I'll see if I can stomach that habanero... If I don't write on my blog again, the habanero won.

Well... would have written about my Bass guitar infatuation, but the pickles took over.... I'll save that for later.

-D

P.S. - I give it seven out of ten fermented cucumbers... Bubbie's are still the best for the money.