The beginning of condiments on a mission
What do you do when your garden blesses you with an abundance of cucumbers? Friends, family, and co-workers can only eat so many.
We brought 3 bags to the food pantry, which was very grateful. But then there is next weeks harvest. Maybe I went a little overboard when I put in 12 packs of cucumber seeds. OK, not that many, but it was alot. And these were the pickling variety. Those green and white skin knobby cukes that have a great crunch.
That was the birth of Crazy Steve's Pickles. I wasn't planning on creating this brand, but over the next few months, the wheels started to spin (which usually gets me in trouble). All I knew that day was I was going to start making pickles.
My grandmother who I grew up with as a child used to pickle every year what she grew out in the garden. From cucumbers to green tomatoes, green beans and her "Chow Chow" made with cauliflower, sweet bell peppers, tomatoes and carrots, would be pickled in salt, vinegar and spices in old mason jars in the kitchen, and finally make their way down to the root cellar under the porch. All her recipes were hand written on loose pieces of paper and stuck in her Slovak cookbook wrapped in rubber bands. The tattered cookbook remains, and has been opened to try those recipes once again.
Why does it smell like a deli in the basement?
I still remember those big oak barrels that were at the corner deli with olive green pickles and spices floating there, waiting to be scooped up and plopped into a wax bag to take home. That's the flavor I am looking for.
Now you have to picture my refrigerator. Jars and jars of pickle samples, pickles which couldn't make the cut going into relish. And not just one type. I have eight flavors in there. The entire top shelf is jars of pickle samples. And then the vegetable bins and bottom shelf is full of cucumbers that I just picked.
"Remember when we used to store fooood in here?' my wife stated as she opened the fridge. 'We should not have to fight for shelf space. " I can't blame her, I do get carried away.
"Oh yeah I might be crazy - but that's not the same as insane"
I am a big Sister Hazel fan, and came across the song Swan Dive at the time I was concocting this whole endeavor, which at the beginning was just a fun goof. A co-worker threw out the name Crazy Steve, and that cinched it. My wife says the name fits, that I couldn't just make pickles; that this had to be an elaborate production. She’s right; I can't just do something simple. One thing just leads to another, and the next thing you know I am sketching a cartoon character for a label.
I think things should be fun. "If it's not fun, why do it?" to quote Ben & Jerry. If I was going to create this product, even in jest, I wanted it to be funny, and at the same time, spark a thought, make you think, educate, inspire, and contribute to life. Tall order for a jar of pickles.