OUR PICKLES WILL RESCUE YOUR LEFTOVER TURKEY... GIVE THANKS FOR "FRIDAY'S FRIEND"!

The Rick's Picks Enhanced Condiment Utilization Task Force has come to rescue your leftover Thanksgiving turkey from the dark nether regions of your refrigerator. Here's a mouth-watering way to make the Friday after Thanksgiving a celebration in its own right using our curried green tomato pickles, the Green Tomato Condiment. At home we call this supreme sandwich Friday's Friend, and some of us look forward to it more than the Thanksgiving meal itself!

The ingredients:

A ciabatta loaf
Leftover turkey
Extra sharp cheddar cheese
A couple of onions
Rick's Picks Green Tomato Condiment
Butter
Turkey gravy

The recipe:

Peel and chop the onions into little pieces. Sauté the onions in a pan with the butter until they are caramelized. Reserve the onions on the side. Slice the ciabatta in half lengthwise. On one side, put slices of turkey and slices of the Green Tomato Condiment pickles. On the other side of the bread, put the caramelized onions and the cheddar cheese. Put the two sandwich halves together and place them in a panini press (if you don't have a panini press, you can use a frying pan and weigh the sandwich down with a second pot). Grill the sandwich on both sides until it is golden brown. And... viola! Friday's Friend. Dip your creation in warm turkey gravy for an added bonus... it's an Italian sandwich concept with a French dip twist... it's like you are standing on top of the Alps looking in both directions!

corn relish and pickled jalapenos are here!

There's nothing more fun than introducing a new product into our family... except when we introduce TWO. That's right, this month we're presenting Handy Corn, a vibrant and zesty corn relish and Heat Seekers, a pickled jalapeno. Handy Corn is something I've been working on for about a year and a half. It started as all great projects do with Mom at home in Vermont. Our version was tasty but I felt it needed a little edge, a little something to make it pop and taste deliciously different. Enter aji dolce peppers, courtesy of my fellow Greenmarket vendor Tim Stark, of Eckerton Hill Farms. Tim's peppers have a sneaky heat that seals the deal and gives the relish an unexpected kick at the finish. Add Handy Corn to salads or your holiday relish tray. My personal favorite is to take a cracker or crostini and top it with a sliver of aged gouda and a dollop of Handy Corn. The Jalapeno project began as a result of customer feedback. People just love hot, spicy food. Another of our Greenmarket brethren, Bill Maxwell of Maxwell's Farm in New Jersey grows a wide range of vegetables, including beautiful Jalapenos. The trick here for me was to come up with a way to augment the natural heat of the Jalapenos. The answer turned out to be adding to the brine Orange Blossom honey from our friend Zeke Freeman of Bee Raw Honey. The honey in the brine lightly tempers the fire of the jalapenos in a subtle pleasing way. Heat Seekers are a great way to top off nachos and chopped into little squares, they are a surprising compliment to cubes of sharp cheddar. Welcome these new additions to our family and invite them into your home!

Elect Rick's Picks!

With the election at hand, what better time to visit our friends in the Washington, D.C. area for some pickle sampling? Here's a list of store locations in and times. Spread the word to your friends and stop by and say hello yourself!

Thursday, October 30th

Whole Foods Mount Washington
1330 Smith Ave
Baltimore 21209
11 AM - 3 PM

Whole Foods Rockville
1649 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852
4 PM - 8 PM

Friday, October 31

Whole Foods Georgetown
2323 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
11 AM - 3 PM

Whole Foods P Street
1440 P Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
4 PM - 8 PM

Saturday, November 1

Whole Foods Kentlands
316 Kentlands Boulevard
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
11 AM - 3 PM

Whole Foods Old Town
1700 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
4 PM - 8 PM

Sunday, November 2

Whole Foods North Wales
1210 Bethlehem Pike
North Wales, PA 19454
11 AM - 3 PM

A Pickle Workshop for Slow Food Boston

I'll be going back to my Massachusetts roots on Friday, August 8th when I teach a pickle-making workshop for Slow Food Boston. We're going to make some pickled beets, some dilly beans, and some TBD form of sliced cucumber pickle with funky chilis. Information is available at http://www.slowfoodboston.com/events.cfm

See ya there and go Red Sox!

A Pickled Corn Experiment

This morning I got up early and made a test batch of pickled corn. The last time I tried fooling around with corn I found the color of the final result to be a tiny bit pale. So this time I added some turmeric. I also felt that the earlier version was a little bland. So I went to my secret supply of carefully-frozen peppers that I procured last season from my fellow Greenmarketer, Tim Stark of Eckerton Hill Farms. Tim is a tomato specialist, and his heirlooms are widely prized (and written about, by Tim, in his cool new book "Heirloom". But Tim also grows the finest array of unusual chili peppers I've ever seen. I'm particularly fond of his Aji Dulces, a small round red pepper with medium heat and an unforgettable sweet aroma. I still had two Aji Dulces left in my freezer, and hopefully that'll be enough to bring some zing to this small batch of pickled corn. I'm calling my recipe Handy Corn and assuming all goes well with this batch I'm going to make a single commercial run while the best of the local corn is still around to sell at the Greenmarket and online. Stay tuned for more details about Handy Corn!

Rick's Picks visits Seattle!

Hail all you pickle people in the Great Northwest!

I am coming to Seattle for a jam-packed (OK, pickle-packed) weekend of store appearances. Come on down and say hello and please pass this link on to your friends, family and fellow pickle-lovers!

Thursday, July 24:

3 PM - 6 PM
Metropolitan Market Proctor
2420 N Proctor Street
Tacoma WA 98407

Friday, July 25:

3 30 - 6 30 PM
Metropolitan Market Queen Anne
1908 Queen Anne Ave N
Seattle WA 98109

Saturday, July 26:

11 AM - 3 PM
Metropolitan Market Admiral
2320 42nd Avenue SW
Seattle WA 98116

3 30 PM - 6 30 PM
Metropolitan Market Sandpoint
5240 40th Avenue NE
Seattle WA 98105

Sunday July 27:

11 AM - 1 PM
De Laurenti's
1435 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101

2 PM - 5 PM
Pike Place Grocery
1926 Pike Place
Seattle, WA 98101

Spread the word and see you there!

Best,

Rick

Pickled in Pennsylvania!

Our friend Bryan is the proprietor of Almanac, an awesome store in Springtown, Pennsylvania. He's doing a special Rick's Picks tasting this Saturday, June 28th, from noon to 5 PM. If you are anywhere near Bucks County, please stop by for a pickle!

Get pickled at:

Almanac
3291 RT 212
Springtown, Pennsylvania
610 346 7509
www.almanacgoods.com