Lower East Side Pickles and a delivery straight from Tallahassee

Charlie from Hammock Hollows once again has given us some amazing product. We have an abundance of mini white cucumbers on hand and what better than some full sour pickles. I recently picked up The Joy of Pickling after reading through and researching many pickling books. This one has it all. You want asian, low country, fermented, sweet or quick pickles this is a great book. They cover everything and leave lots of room for interpretation. Our F&B Director is a born and bred New Yorker who is fanatic and vocal about his pickles and what he believes is a good or bad representation of basically his childhood. The Lower East Side pickle recipe is one I hope he will be fond of. I had our very own New York native pickle aficionado, F&B Assistant Director Luciano Sperduto, try the pickle brine and immediately he was on board. The author Linda Ziedrich comments in the book on all the New Yorkers requesting a pickle recipe that they could relate to. She went to all the corner delis, inspected the barrels and their contents and came up with the recipe that we based our pickles on.



After a few modifications from my own experience coming from a family that grew up in New York we came to our own recipe. We stuck the pickles in our back bar where we have a constant 58F for our which happens to be a perfect pickle arena for us in the kitchen. The humidity and the temperature in this room duplicates the environment of that northern east coast basement. I cryovac'd some water in a large bag and placed it on top of the pickles to hold them under the brine, every day we will wash the bag and skim any scum that develops. In a couple weeks we should have a good representation of some classic NY pickles. Of course you can't compete with the aged barrels or the mineral rich water of NY but I feel we can come close and provide our guest something akin to the original. It's a waiting game now, we'll have to just wait and see.



The second part of this post is a fresh delivery of squash and eggplant from my grandmother in law's garden in Tallahassee. They have a perfect summer climate to grow some amazing stuff. Her garden was recently ravaged by deer eating all her cherry tomatoes, okra and peas. I guess they don't care for squash or eggplant which is fine by me. She is old school, well educated in traditional preparation and always teaches me something about food.