SWEET PICKLES

This story is not about my husband. It is about my mother and aunt.

My mother’s younger sister, Baby, had three daughters and my mother (who I always called Murr) loved all three of them and loved to be around them. One day when the middle daughter, Janet, came to see Murr they got to talking about cooking and recipes they enjoyed making. They decided they would get together over at Janet’s house and make some sweet pickles. My mother was so excited and couldn’t wait to do it. In fact she was so excited about it, she thought they had already done it. So the next time Baby came to see her, she told Baby that she and Janet had gotten together at Janet’s and made pickles. Well Baby was really “put out” as we say in our family. She was aggravated at Janet and Murr because they had gotten together and done something fun without her. I think she was even mad at the rest of us because we had let it happen. Can you blame her? They had spent their lives getting together to do things like that. Why had they left her out this time?

Janet and I liked to have never have convinced her that it had not really happened, Murr just thought it had.

In case there is anyone left on the planet who has not made these pickles, here is the recipe.

SWEET HOT PICKLES

1 gallon jar whole dill pickles.
1 bag of sugar (4 pounds)
1 bottle Tabasco sauce
1 bottle Louisiane hot sauce

Drain juice off pickles and discard. Cut pickles in one inch pieces. Put pickles back in Jar. Pour sugar and hot sauces in jar on top of the pickles, alternating sugar and hot sauces so they are kind of mixed together. Screw the lid back on and leave out on kitchen cabinet so that you can turn the jar back and forth several times a day. It takes about 7 to 10 days of this jar turning. Then refrigerate. I divide them up into several containers and spread them around among my friends; it would take us a year to eat a gallon of pickles.

The hot sauces are up to you. I never use two bottles and sometimes don’t use any hot sauced at all. It is up to you and your taste buds.