Pickle Myths

My mother is taller, richer and much more good-looking than me. But sometimes.

She came over today to help pack the pickle jars. She actually asked me if it was “my time of month.” Evidently you’re not supposed to make pickles when you’re, you know.

She left before I poured the boiling brine solution into the jars, but not before reminding me to stick a stainless steel knife into each jar as I poured so the glass wouldn’t explode. Umm, I think they make shatterproof-glass canning jars these days.

Ritual won out, and the stainless steel knife did its duty. When it comes to pickles, I do what my mother tells me, because she did what her mother told her, who did what her mother told her.

We’re an undiluted solution, we Fitterman-Veiner-Keel women, at least when it comes to pickles.