Trader Joe's

This past weekend I took a fun trip down to Santa Fe.  While looking up things to do in Santa Fe, I discovered they have a Trader Joe's.  Denver does not have one.  I was very excited to stock up on two buck chuck and try Trader Joe's pickles.  They are suppose to be quite good.  I purchased one jar of kosher dills and one jar of sandwich stacker type pickles.  When I opened the jar of koshers, I will admit, I was a little scared.  The pickles were very, very bumpy.  Well, despite my apprehension, the pickles were delicious!  They are the perfect snack size for most people and the taste was really good.  They were not too salty, therefore you could taste flavors that you can't taste in a lot of pickles!  A bug thumbs up Joe!

Although the pickles get an A+, I am touch disappointed in two buck chuck.  Two buck Chuck is actually $2.99.  I know the argument, three buck Chuck just doesn't have the same ring. I do believe that in most California stores it is still $1.99 but it was not in Santa Fe.

In honor of $2 Chuck, I found this song by the Beatnik Turtles:
Two Buck Chuck

I hope you enjoy it!

A damn fine pickle indeed!

Let me apologize by saying this review is a touch premature.  Normally, I like to sample a couple of varaties of a brand of pickles before I write a review to make sure my opinion of the brand is not shaped by one type of pickle.  This did not happen with my latest pickle, Brooklyn Brine's NY Deli Pickles.

Brooklyn Brine is a company that was started by two metal band mates who found a mutual love of pickling.  Brooklyn Brine's mission is to make "a damn fine pickle" and I think they have succeeded in doing so.  In addition to cucumbers, they pickle other things, such as fennel beets and asparagus.  The cucumber varaties include, a damn spicy pickle, whiskey sour pickles and the NY Deli style pickles.  As I mentioned before, I had the NY Deli Style pickles.

 I bought these at Williams and Sonoma, while looking for the always sold-out McClure's.  I had read about these pickles on the Pickle Freak blog and thought I should give them a try.  I liked the label and that they are hand packed.  When I read the ingredients, two stuck out that made me immediately think I was not going to like them, sugar cane and apple cider vinegar.  I was wrong.  These pickles were not too sweet at all.  There was a hint of sugar but the apple cider vinegar made the pickles sour in a good way.  There is red pepper and other spices that made these pickles not only sour but a touch tangy.  Delicious!  I can't wait to try the other cucumbers and vegetable varieties they offer!!!

In other news, I want to give a shout out to super pickle.  As you may remember super pickle is my mascot.  He is stuffed pickle I have sitting on my desk at work.  Well this week my daughter went to a dance intensive and I thought she might need super pickle for luck, so I let her take him to New Mexico.  Well, I miss super pickle.  I hope he is enjoying Santa Fe and I hope Claire is treating him right.  I will see you soon Super Pickle!

Pickles and Soccer--a match made

Alberto and I ate lunch at a local deli on Saturday.  Alberto wanted to go there because they had a West Ham scarf in the window.  Let me explain since most American's would not understand why this is a draw.  West Ham United is an English Premier league soccer team.  (Football if you are from somewhere else.)  Alberto is a huge soccer fan and living in Colorado does run across a few Colorado Rapids fans, but rarely runs across other English premier league fans.  Sadly, this is how we pick where we are going to eat lunch.  It was easy for me to agree because they had a pickle on their sign.  How could it be all bad?

I have been to many deli's that show pickles or even have pickle in the name and they are no pickle paradise. Jimmy and Drew's was!!  First, like any good deli, they serve every sandwich with a pickle slice on the side. These are BIG pickle slices.  Bigger than some whole pickles.  We also bought a couple pickles as extras.  They had spicy, which was super delicious and regular.  Alberto, who is not really a fan of spicy pickles, said the regular pickle is the best pickle he has had in years.  As a man who probably eats more pickles than he cares to, I think this is high praise!  I ate a sandwich called the Dilly Capone!  The sign wasn't the only think with a pickle, there was a pickle paining, pickles on the table and even a pickle wreath.  I told my dear soccer loving, pickle eatin hubby that I want decorations like that, but I am scared that I would become the crazy pickle lady.  His reply, "Become the crazy pickle lady?"  :)

My husband posted this picture of me on facebook:

He captioned the picture by saying I was taking my pickle obsession to a whole new level and eating pickles for my meal now.  Silly Alberto!  I have been doing that for years.  (I did order and eat part of the Dilly Capone.)

Overall, this place is awesome and we will definitely be back.  The soccer stuff was cool, the pickles were whimsical and delicious and it was a local establishment which is always good.  Oh yeah, the sandwiches were okay too!  :)

The USA and pickles

Happy Belated 4th of July.  This year was a particularly good holiday for me.  I ate numerous pickles and enjoyed the company of good friends.  I had ambitions of dying my pickles red white and blue, but alas, it didn't get done.  I do have some fun pickle/America facts:

In 1492, Columbus gave pickles to his crew to prevent scurvy.  When I read this fact, I was a little baffled.  I thought scurvy was a lack of vitamin C.  So, I Googled it and found out I was indeed correct.  Here is what I didn't know, cucumbers have vitamin C.  I am a little sad by my lack of food knowledge.  At any rate, it is another good reason to eat pickles and now I can tell people it is part of the reason America is what it is today because of pickles.

Another fun America/pickle fact is Amerigo Vespucci, who it is widely believed that the Americas are named, was a pickle merchant.  I guess he gave up the pickle biz to sail around the world and steal maps from Columbus, but it is important to note that he spent time contributing to society, by selling pickles!

I tried to find a picture of a red, white and blue pickle but was unable to do so.  Instead I found a sign with a pickle and the USA on it.  Lil Pickle USA subs is a sandwich shop in Costa Mesa, CA.  I haven't ever been there, but I bet it is good!  :)

Pickle 2.0 and purses...

Alberto says I am the world's worst blogger.  I told him between raising two kids, holding a full time job, being Booster Club secretary, hanging with our neighbors, traveling for family, traveling for dance and driving the kids around I hardly have time to eat pickles, forget about writing about them!  Really, I am not quick on my feet, so I said, "I know."

Let me start by saying that Jenny's pickles has EXCELLENT customer service.  Miss Jenny read my blog, sent me new pickles and apologized for the previous jars.  Two thumbs up for Miss Jenny's pickles.  Since the event occurred so long ago, I cannot re-review them at this time, but will order from them again.  Customer service like that does not happen in this day and age.  As extra incentive to order from them, they are offering free shipping over the summer to all orders over $25!  Everyone should take advantage of this:
http://www.missjennyspickles.com/

My family recently visited the Lone Star state.  While we were there, my daughter and I did our requisite vacation shopping.  Claire and I went into the Coach store at the Barton Creek Mall in Austin, TX.  My old coach purse is starting to show signs of wear and my fashion conscious 14 year old pointed out all my other handbags are winter colors.  Claire also really does not like that I usually carry such big bags.  She is pretty happy that my current Coach is small.  The problem with this, is that my current Coach Purse can hold exactly one pickle.  If I need to carry a jar, like most of the time, Blue Betty (yes I name my handbags) does not do the trick.  Claire thinks the bigger back I carry, the more junk I carry.  That is probably true, but for me it is all about pickle capacity.  This was my choice:

This is the bag we compromised on.  One jar capacity with little extra room for junk.  After our big debate and our compromise I didn't buy it.  Why, you may ask since it was perfect?  I am cheap.  So many pickles could be bought with $350.  So instead I went down to Williams and Sonoma and bought McClure's instead.  (Yeah for this, our Williams and Sonoma NEVER has them on the shelves!)  I will find a bag at Target with a one jar capacity that costs less than $30.

Any purse suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

Pickle parties

There are so many reasons to have a pickle party.  As I have mentioned before, my neighbor Kevin, makes a good pickle.  This year, all of our neighbors got together and pickled together.  Now whenever the neighbors get together we usually open a jar or two of the ones we have made.  This week we opened some of Steve and Kathy's.  It is official, of all the jars we pickled this year, Kathy's were the yummiest.  She better be careful or I might raid her garage in the middle of the night.

Here is Steve with this year's best jar!

As some of you may know, my birthday just past.  We celebrated with the neighbors and had a great time!  We also cracked open pickles that we had mixed with different types of alcohol.  I would say for the most part, it was an experiment that had gone terribly, terribly wrong.  Here is the breakdown:

Whiskey-This was one of the better ones.  They were really spicy and I couldn't tell if it was Whiskey burn or if it was because we put peppers in with the Whiskey.  When we first opened these, I could get through a whole pickles, but I wouldn't really say I ENJOYED them.  At that point, I didn't know it would get worse...MUCH  WORSE.

Tequila pickles-Not good.  One bite and that is all I could stomach.  At this point people started shying away from try anymore.

Mike's Hard Lemonade (Pomegranate Flavor)-I was hoping that this would taste like Kool aid pickles.  Sweet and Salty all mixing together in a wonderful medley.  Sadly, this was not the case and people actually started spitting out their bites.

Beer-This was surprisingly good.  Honestly, I think there was enough brine in this batch you couldn't really notice the beer flavor.  I would actually try this pickle again.

Vodka-HORRIBLE.  I don't think we put any brine in this, just vodka and the cucumber.  This does not work as well as infusing a watermelon with vodka.  It did not have a pleasant taste unless you like straight vodka and are expecting to taste straight vodka.  I will say that this was the most disappointing for me since I have had dill  infused vodka with pickles as a chaser that that was delicious!

Finally we had a jar called GOLF.  We suspect, although no one really could remember, that this was a "suicide" type drink.   We mixed a bunch together.  I will say this fell somewhere between the Vodka and the Mike's Hard which put it in the more horrible than less horrible category.  

All in all, if you are going to pickle with alcoholic beverages I would give you the following tips:

1.  Have a plan

2.  Measure and label so you know how much of what is in each jar!

3.  Use at least some brine, otherwise it is an infused cucumber

4.  Don't do it.  :)

At any rate, terrible pickles that made me sick all the next day or not, I had a great birthday!

Pickle laws

When I was young, I read a book called Pickles Must Bounce and other Wacky Laws.  The book said that in Connecticut a pickle must bounce or it will not be considered a pickle.  I tried to verify this law and if you do a Google search it appears to be true, but in reality, I could not find a source that was reliable enough to site.    I have actually a few pickles to see if they bounce and I would say bouncing is definitely relative.  You could not dribble a pickle, so it is not a replacement for the basketball.

While I was trying to figure out if the pickle law in Connecticut still existed (or ever did for that matter) I was hoping to find more laws that pertained to pickles.  Sadly it seems, pickles are mostly an unregulated industry.  Sure there are food safety standards, but nothing specifically for pickles.  In Wisconsin there was a "pickle bill" that dealt with the sale of home made goods, but yet again, not really aimed at just pickles.

So, in light of the lack of pickle laws, I will take it upon myself to fight for pickle justice.

A girl with a dream

Miss Jenny use to be a stockbroker.  Miss Jenny lost her job.  Now Miss Jenny makes pickles.  To me, this IS the American dream.
Miss Jenny's story

Watching this story, which I wish was my own, I of course ordered some right away!  I wanted to support a woman in business, especially one who is selling pickles.  Miss Jenny has four types of pickles: salt and pepper, hot salt and pepper, bread and butter and hot bread and butter.  As I have stated before, I am not a huge fan of bread and butter, I did order a jar of those just to taste, but I was very much looking forward to the salt and pepper variety.

Let's start with the good:  these pickles are all natural.  That is definitely a plus.  The two women who are partners in this company are no longer stock brokers.  I also think this is a plus, from there, it kind of goes down hill.

These were definitely the mushiest pickles I have ever eaten.  I also think they are pretty tasteless.  Even the hot pickles were pretty tasteless.  I like a pickle with bite.  Honestly, your no name brand pickles have more taste than these did.  When eaten by themselves the texture was not good, so I thought I would try it on a sandwich.  When I did that, I could barely taste them.  The bread and butter were marginally better, but as I just stated I don't love bread and butter pickles.

Sorry Miss Jenny.  I won't be carrying you in my purse.

I have been inspired...

I was dismayed at my creative juices running dry.  That is why I did not blog for a long time.  Luckily I fueled myself with some pickle juice and decided to give this another run.  I have after all been eating lots and lots of pickles over the past few months.

Just like many, many people I gained some weight over the holidays.  (Actually my weight gain started over the summer thanks to all the parties with neighborhood gang.)  So, for the first time in my life, I am going on a diet as part of my New Year's resolution.  I have been on many diets in my day, but felt it should never be my New Year's resolution because it is just too trite.  This year was different, because I could not stand looking at myself any longer.  So for the past two weeks I have been thinking about what plan is best for me, Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers.  By this point, I am sure some of you have guessed, I think I am going to try the Pickle Diet!

So I googled the pickle diet and what I found out was, you eat three meals a day and every time you want a snack you eat a pickle!  Well that is no good, that is what I do anyway.  So upon further research I found this:
http://www.fatsecret.com/Community.aspx?pa=fp&t=35625

That pickle diet basically says all you eat are pickles and drink water and you will lose weight.  Now that is my kind of diet.  The only problem is that did not seem very sustainable in the long term.   hmmmm.....Maybe I need to give this more thought.

2011 here I come a bloggin and eating pickles!