adrian is rad

I’ve recently been making homemade kosher dill pickles. I’m in the middle of batch four, which is the best batch yet. They’re delicious and crunchy. They’re brine cucumbers (as opposed to vinegar cucumbers), so don’t go into them expecting the standard store-bought taste.

I started with this recipe and modified it very slightly as follows.

—
3 tablespoons pickling spices*
9 cloves garlic
12 pickling cucumbers
1/4 cup Kosher salt
1 bunch fresh dill
—

The biggest change from the recipe was that I only left the jar out of the fridge for about 6 hours instead of 4 days. (They took another day or two in the fridge until they were fully pickled*.) I actually left the first couple batches 4 and 1.5 days out and the last batch turned out much better, crunchy and delicious.

Another thing that seems to be helpful is to cut about 1/16″ off the bloom end of the cucumbers. Apparently the blooms have some detrimental enzymes in them.

* I started with the McCormick spices from the grocery store, but for the last batch I switched to pickling spices from Penzeys, which seem to be an improvement. I also read these spices are good.

** While they’re fermenting, I’d recommend opening the jar at least once a day to let out the gas that they’re producing or you’ll end up with slightly fizzy pickles.

Update: I think I would start with 6 cloves of garlic. 9 can be a bit strong.

A photo from a couple years ago, but one of the Pirates caps I’ve worn this year. By Ashley Bischoff

Before the season started I said I’d wear a Pirates cap every day the Pirates were at or above 0.500, so today is the first day since May 30 that I haven’t worn one. (In fact, I wore one a number of days before May 30 as well.)

Their current collapse makes me pretty sad. I still have hope that they’ll end up above 0.500, and there are a number of things that are going right this season, but the weight of 20 (potential) straight losing season is, well, overbearing.