Having lived in Italy for the past 2 ½ years, I came to fall in love with Italian pickled vegetables, also known as giardinera.  Then, my job took me & my family to Memphis, where there is a multitude of pickled anything, from cucumbers to watermelon rind.  So, I made it my personal mission to pickle something (besides my liver) before I die.  Here is my first in what I hope to be a series of pickle stories.

Week one:  After several weeks of going to the local markets, and seeing a lot of pickling items (such as pickling cucumbers, mainly), I decided that I needed to pickle something.  The problem was, every time we went to a place to get supplies, we would get the vegetable in question, and then not find mason jars.  Once we found mason jars, we needed pickling spices.  Once we found those, we forgot to get the salt & vinegar.  Anyway, it took a couple of weeks, but I finally had the supplies in the same house.  Then, we finally got the vegetable that I wanted to pickle—okra!

When I was a kid, I was first introduced to pickled okra by a friend in the third grade, who used to bring a jar (whole jar) as part of his lunch (a minor part).  He was a big kid, and ended up playing football for our high school.  Since my first taste, I have loved pickled okra, and can never eat enough.

I finally got my okra home, downloaded a simple recipe from the first website I googled (or second or third).  I haven’t listed it here, not because it’s proprietary, but because I don’t want to waste your time & give you a recipe when you can find a dozen better ones out there.  I boiled the salt, vinegar, and water (ugh), and poured everything into the mason jars, then waited the obligatory 2 weeks.  Well, I opened one of the jars after about 9 days, because I just couldn’t wait any longer.  I tasted my first okra, and it was awesome!  I gave my wife one, she gave me the thumbs up (probably just to get me to shut up), then proceeded to eat the whole jar. 

Unfortunately, I only made two jars, so I have one left, that I actually will wait the whole two weeks for.  However, the damage is done—I’m hooked on homemade pickled things.  Next time, I plan to actually pickle cucumbers.  I’ll post my next article once they’re done!