Pickle your Battles

I stood there in the kitchen with a large knife in my hands, a yellow flowered apron, bloody red everywhere. The fight was hard, but I was victorious. A crimson red fluid dripped down the side of the drawers and cabinets, and I was tired, but wore a slight grin on the side of my face.

I had just taken a 10 pound bag of farm fresh beets through hours of scrubbing and boiling, cooling and peeling, slicing and spicing, pickling and canning until victory was mine: 12 perfect pints of pickled beets lined up like little soldiers.

During the struggle, I overheard a snippet on the radio about pickles and warfare.

Caesar distributed them to his troops to fortify body and spirit. Napoleon’s need for a stable pickle supply for his soldiers led to the development of modern canning techniques. Pickles were rationed in WWII, so that the good guys could eat them and fight the bad guys. And we all know who won.

Despite what it looked like, the carnage in the kitchen wasn’t a battle against the beets at all. It was a struggle against our common enemy: the perishable summer.

The sun is setting earlier now and I regularly hear crunchy yellow leaves beneath my feet. I must accept that some of my tomatoes may never ripen. But I won’t accept the fall without a fight. And so I march into battle with a knife in my hand and a middle finger for the end of summer.

After it was all over, I savored my victory. They were a little sweet and a little sour. And some cold day in November I am going to pop open the spoils of war and feast on a slice of stolen sunshine.