Pickle Palooza

Work is full of adventure. New things. Crazy ideas at times. Some days it's the same old, same old. But some days it's the adventure, new things and crazy ideas. That was today. Earlier in the summer one of the participants I work with had been talking with one of my co-workers about the mediocre garden in our courtyard and the cucumbers that were growing in specific. They then started talking about making pickles. This idea was brought to me and I ran with it. We got our Kitchen Coordinator on board and multiple other staff. So...today, on pickle making day we turned 25 pounds, yes 25 pounds of cucumbers into 37 jars of pickles-in-progress as I call them as they've got to sit a few days before eating. When this idea first came to me, a pickle making newbie, I shook my head no because I invisioned hot water baths and canning being required. Little did I know that there are refrigerator pickle recipes, crock pickle recipes, etc. We opted for refrigerator pickles using a recipe adapted a bit from this one. We had a great turn out of staff and volunteers to support this event (nearly 20 if not 20 of them and this is a challenge in my building) and we had probably as many participants. There was magic in the room. People we happy, stories were being told, experiences shared both from early lives and current day. It was wonderful and warmed my heart and gave me a bit of a push to get through the challenges I've been slogging through at work. I am grateful.

Cucumbers in a box. I counted them all and did a guessing game with the staff and whoever guessed the closest will get a jar of pickles. There were 158! And, a deserving person won the jar o'pickles.

 Post washing and starting to slice into spears.

 We assembly-lined our project...one table cutting, one table putting dill in the jars, one putting garlic in, and two tables stuffing jars! There was one particular participant who was SO pro at stuffing....I was impressed. After the stuffing they went to the brine King and he filled the jars and then others lidded them.

 When all was cut and stuffed and brined we had lots of soon-to-be pickles and very happy campers.

 Wall o'pickles.

**Update as of 9/3/14. We cracked open a couple of jars and my, of my....what an amazing pickle we made. We were pros. So, next year we are doubling our efforts and having participants in the weeks before design labels for the jars. Selling or at least using them for some sort of marketing event might be in our future. It was that successful and it was requested that we do it again! Life is good.