Pickle Heaven

You are looking at my favorite food. These are Aunt Tate's pickles. Aunt Tate is my mom's aunt and when I was little I would eat entire jars of these pickles in a sitting. Who am I kidding I still do it. Sadly, Aunt Tate passed away years ago, but she left us with the amazing gift of the pickle recipe. I have made them 3 or 4 times since receiving this gift, and actually my sweet mom gave me 8 jars for my birthday one year. However, while always being some of the best pickles I've ever tasted, they were never quite up to Aunt Tate par.

For our 5 year anniversary this year Caleb got me a pickling cucumber plant. It has gone crazy and I have been swimming in cucumbers just begging to become the greatest pickles of all time. I have just opened the inaugural jar, and brace yourselves, I think I've done it!!! If my taste bud memory serves me correctly, these are bonafide Aunt Tate pickles, ladies and gentlemen!

The interesting thing is that for the first time I did not follow the recipe exactly. Which brings me to this topic of conversation... I sometimes have to wonder if the older generation is simply just forgetting the actual recipe and passing down what they think they are doing, or if they want to hold the title of, for instance, greatest pickles of all time, so they finagle the recipe so that you get something good, but not great.

Case in point #1 I have been blessed with the greatest mom-in-law a girl could ever ask for. We share a love of many things and she's just one of the coolest ladies out there. She makes something called dream cookies. Caleb loves these cookies and he doesn't really like sweets so it's a big deal. I was given the recipe when we got married, but have failed many times to make them correctly. I love you Gwenda Cheree Johnson, but I'm going on record that I believe you to be witholding dream cookie recipe information. I believe one Alli Cooper will second that statement.

Case in point #2 Grammie Lou is a fantastic cook. She blessed me with a cook book of all our family recipes when we got married. However, it includes such things like her recipe for roast. Which includes a list of probably 10-12 different spices/herbs followed by the words, "Just throw any combination of the above ingredients into the pot." No amounts, nothing. I will admit though most everything I've made out of this book tastes great, so I can't complain too much.

I got a little off topic there, my apologies. Anyhoo, I'm swimming in the greatness of Aunt Tate pickles. Still have more cucumbers to pickle and I make no promises about sharing any of them even though I'll have close to 20 jars by the time the plant stops producing. Ya'll wouldn't like them anyway so don't get mad at me.