Making pickles is a lot like making soap. You have to give your total attention while making either of them. Multi-tasking muddles it up and makes you miss those important temperature windows. Come to think of it, making barbecue has this in common with soapmaking and canning. The best barbecue is made with an almost zen-like focus. Eric pretty much lives in this zen-like state. Not me. I think I gravitate to toward these three activities because each one forces me to stop, forces me to be totally present with the task at hand, which is the opposite of my usual. Multi-tasking would be a far better middle name for me than the one my parents made up. Don't ask. I've gotten over the middle name.
Take the other day for instance. A friend took my daughter for an hour and a half. During that precious gift of time, I hired someone, printed 30 pages of labels for a mailer, ran to the restaurant and checked in (and because I'd left the label stock there), made arrangements to close on our house (by the way, we're moving, like, next week, you know, because Thanksgiving week is an awesome time for us to move), ate half a bag of popcorn, fired off two e-mails to catering clients, and did a load of laundry.
The fact that I ran back to her house, on the phone, and left the car running for 30 minutes with my purse in the front seat, wide open, before my friend noticed, is a sign that I need. To. Stop.
So here are pickles. They are delicious, they are spicy-sweet...and they are my therapy.
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