Whoever designated the phrase "to get in a pickle" as a negative thing had clearly never had delicious pickles.  I can't wait to get into the pickles Stephan and I made today.  We made four kinds of vegetables into two styles of pickles and soon we'll be reaping the rewards.

I'm a make-it-yourself kind of gal when it comes to food, but somehow I'd never thought of making my favorite kind of pickles, half sours, until recently.  I think this is partly about my upbringing.  I grew up in New York City where no one would ever even think of making their own half sour pickles, because you can buy excellent half sours from Guss's, Zabar's, or other purveyors of fine, simple, Jewish foods.  Guss's pickles has (in various forms) been around for about a century, part of a long lineage of pickle shops.  My grandmother and my mother remember, as little girls, going into places with big barrels from which one could obtain pickle deliciousnesses.  Who needed to make your own?  I just accepted, when I left New York, that only upon visiting the East Coast would I again be able to eat perfect pickles.  So far, that's held true.

Until now.  At least, I hope.  We'll find out in a few days.

We made half sour pickles today.  We also made vinegar pickles out of cucumbers, string beans, romano beans, and tromboccini squash, but it's the half sours I'm focusing on here.  The half sours, unlike the canned varieties above, are a fermented pickle.  Because they don't ferment terribly long, they'll be ready to eat in just a few days.  I can't wait.

If I'm reproducing an authentic food I miss, I have to get it right.  Authenticity and memory and taste are tied up into the kind of complicated relationship you can't begin to detangle.  Luckily, the process of getting an authentic recipe right can be nearly as enjoyable as the satisfaction of succeeding.  Today, a quest for perfect half sour pickles involved searching recipes online and in books, and calls to various New Yorkers, some of whom I'm related to.

We started with the recipes.  Recipes from Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation, recipes from various websites with promises of pickles like your bubbe used to make (though your Bubbe, as I’ve explained, probably actually bought them on Essex Street or Flatbush Avenue), and recipes from various other websites for comparison.  We started assembling ingredients - local, organic pickling cucumbers, vinegar, peppercorns, lots of garlic, dill heads, salt, water...  Still, something felt like it was missing.  So, I decided to call the experts.

First, my mother.  I caught my mother in the late afternoon her time, just after the Yankees had won a game.  It was lucky I hadn't called her a few minutes before, or I would never have held her attention; my mother takes baseball seriously.  Of course, before I could ask any questions about pickles, she had to update me about the game, about this charming pitcher just up from the minor leagues who was Native American and whose father was paralyzed by polio and raised two kids alone, and how the father just flew out to see his son play in Yankee Stadium, and how well his son pitched...  This went on for a few minutes.

After the baseball update, I casually asked my mother if she could tell me what flavors stand out in her mind when she thinks of a half sour pickle (which she dearly loves).  "Garlic," she confirmed, "and peppercorns."  How strong is the garlic?  How peppery?  I drilled her with questions.  "All right," she said, "I'm thinking of the place on Flatbush Avenue...  It was always fun to go there.  You looked in the pickle barrel and picked out which one you wanted.  I definitely remember peppercorns.  Lots of peppercorns floating on top."  We changed topics for a while, and then, suddenly, she said, "Bay leaves.  I think they had bay leaves.  It took me a while; I had to picture going into the pickle place and then I could picture the barrels, and now I think I remember bay leaves."

Stephan I and debated.  None of the recipes we had mentioned bay leaves.  Should we rely on my mother's memory?  There was only one way to find out, and here we get into the second round of calling experts.

I'm letting you in on a secret of mine here.  I've done this before.  If I want to know whether a particular food from New York should have a particular ingredient, I call up whatever purveyor in New York makes it best and ask.  I've dialed (800) NY-BAGEL many a time (that's the number for H&H Bagels, for those of you who don't know), and asked questions like, "My friend can't have sugar.  Are your bagels boiled with sugar?"  (No).  "My friend can't have 3 1/2 cups of flour.  Does your bagel recipe call for..."  (just kidding).

So, today, I called Guss's Pickles on Orchard Street (they moved from Essex Street a few years ago).  "Do your half sours have bay leaves?"  I asked.  "Oh sure," said the woman with the Queens accent, "in the pickling spices."  "What else is in the pickling spices?"  I asked boldly, admitting, in a streak of post Yom Kippur honesty, "I'm out on the West Coast and I miss your pickles terribly."  "Oh, no problem," she said, "You can make your own, easy.  Just a little bay leaves, coriander, peppercorns, mustard seed, dill.  You'll be fine."  I thanked her and hung up.  Bay leaves.  Check.

Later, the source I should have gone to in the first place confirmed the bay leaves' importance.  I called Grandma and told her we were making half sour pickles.  A grandmother's job involves finding out if one's granddaughter has made any grave errors and informing her if she has.  So, of course, she quickly asked if we had used lots of garlic.  I confirmed that we had.

"How much?" she pressed.

"About a head in a gallon of pickles," I replied.

"That sounds like enough," she admitted.  She paused.  "You used bay leaves, I hope."

If my mother's memory of peering wide eyed into pickle barrels, the nice lady who works at Guss's, and my grandmother all agree on the importance of bay leaves in making half sour pickles, no one on Earth could convince me not to use them.  There's probably a life lesson in that somewhere, but I'm too busy drooling to think of it.  I'm already thinking about Wednesday, when we'll open those half sours and have a taste.  We'll peer into the pickle crock, watch the bay leaves and the peppercorns floating around, pick out the first one we want, and know we've done it right.

Recipe: Half-Sour Pickles

Non-Chlorinated Water, approximately 1 gallon

Vinegar, about 1/4 cup

Pickling (non iodized) salt, about 1/2 cup

1 gallon of pickling cucumbers, preferably local/organic

Pickling spices: peppercorns, bay leaves, whole garlic cloves, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, fresh dill heads.          

                           Quantities to taste.

Wash pickles.  Place in a vat.  Sprinkle in pickling spices, and tuck in dill heads and garlic cloves.  Mix the water with salt and vinegar.  Pour over the top of the pickles.  Cover tightly with a plate and weight it down.  Cover with a cloth.  Check on it every day or so, and skim off any mold that may appear.  After about 3-5 days, you should have half-sour pickles.