I got a bag full of vegetables last week from the market: 4 tomatoes, 3 green peppers, 3 onions, and 5 or 6 large carrots for $1. You can't do a whole lot with such a little amount of each kind, so I usually just use them to spruce up scrambled eggs or make a simple pasta sauce. But the carrots? I thought perhaps I'd cut them up into sticks and keep them in the fridge for when I have the munchies. Healthy, but somewhat boring. This evening was supposed to be a celebration time with some friends, but my phone call went unanswered, and when I'm bored and/or don't have any plans, I waltz into the kitchen. And those carrots, they were begging to be made into something more exciting than plain sticks. So I gave them a soothing bath with some water, apple cider vinegar, thyme, black pepper, garlic cloves, salt, and sugar. And now we wait. I've been wanting to try the recipe from Molly Wizenberg's food memoir A Homemade Life, and who'd have thunk that nearly 3 years (ish) later, after mentally bookmarking the recipe, I'd have a chance to goof around with it. In El Salvador, of all places.
The downside to making pickles is the waiting. If you're a sucker like me for salty snacks that appear healthy (Mom, they're vegetables!) you can't wait to stick your hand in the pickle jar and taste your creation. According to the recipe, I must wait at least 24 hours before snacking. That means Monday morning or so ... we'll see if I last that long.
I'm terrible at waiting. And based on recent blog posts, I'm also terrible at being present in the moment. So where do I fit on the past-present-future line? I've been told that we gringos think way too much about the future. And in this world of instant everything, instant messages, instant pudding, instant potatoes, instant updates, we don't know how to wait either. Waiting a day or so for pickles is nothing. Cheers to learning how to be patient.
And I'll be sure to let you know how the pickles turn out.
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