Pickling Party!

Yep, pickling!  As in...canning!  Odd topic, right?  We know a group of guys from from our favorite local establishment and they do everything!  When I need something fixed at home, one of them can do it.  They fish in Wisconsin and maybe twice a year we have a fish fry, at the local establishment, of course.  They make their own pickles, horseradish, peaches and I don't even know what else but I'm sure there are plenty of other things.  The husband scored an invite to the pickling party this past Sunday and insisted that we be in town for him to participate.  I have to say I thought it was kind of silly at first.

Friday night, at the local establishment, a couple of the guys invited me to the party.  I hadn't been invited previously and was under the impression this was not a party for wives.  The husband did not approve at all but Saturday morning he ran into one of the guys at the farmer's market and realized that yes, I was indeed, invited.  Sunday morning I went out for a quick bike ride with friends.  The picking party was scheduled at 10 a.m.  One of the people I was biking with had a mechanical problem, which caused a crash, which caused a small injury and together, it was all enough to end our bike ride.  I had to call the husband to come and get us.  He was, of course, totally irritated because one, he is totally sick of bike season and the repairs we've had to deal with but this was going to make him late for the pickling party.  Anyway, we got through it all and I think we were only about 20 minutes late for pickling.

I wasn't sure exactly what I was in store for.  The first thing they handed me when we (finally!) arrived was a mimosa! 

This might turn out to be okay!  We had three bushels of cucumbers

I didn't know exactly what three bushels of cucumbers meant but I sure do now.  I was the official cutter.  Wow!  That's a lot of cucumbers.  I thought my fingers were going to be stained green for days to come.  The little ones too, so there was plenty of cutting and slicing.

We had appetizers.  Good appetizers too!

Zucchini Fritters

Smoked salmon

 

One of the sisters made all this food for us.  I am not a fan of fried zucchini BUT these fritters were DE-lish!  She made two kinds, one variety had Quinoa!  She said she would share the recipe with me but I forgot to leave my email address for her.  I could not believe how good that all was!

In the end, I think we had 106 jars of pickles.  All different varieties, fryers, dill, bread and butter, zesty, etc. etc. etc.  All the garlic, dill and onions came from the guys garden as well. 

What a party!  Who knew pickling could be SO much fun!  We were invited to the peach party in September.  The guys that do it all have peach trees AND they have white peach trees too.  My favorite!  The pickling party left me with a headache Monday morning (we got pickled too) but it was worth it.  I can't wait for the peach party!