Week 96: Just Try It
Tastes can change — even when pickles are involved…
Each Sunday, my wife and I cook and eat a meal together — intentionally. Every Friday, I’ll be sharing our experience here in this space. I want to see the growth that will come in our marriage because of this. I hope you enjoy our story. You can find last week’s post here.
Pickles have always disgusted me. Originally, I simply didn’t like the taste of them. And the color has always grossed me out a bit, too. But then, I had an experience that cemented in my brain an utter dislike for pickles in all their forms.
I was in high school, and I was making an evening trip to the fridge for some teenage sustenance. Of course I was searching for something health — fruits and vegetables, no doubt. One thing I certainly WAS NOT looking for was the half-opened jar of pickles on the top rack. In my feverish search for an apple or maybe some fresh spinach (again, my memory is a little fuzzy on that part) I happened to knock over the jar of pickles. In a split second, my worst fears had been realized — pickle juice now covered everything in the fridge. The smell lingered for days. I couldn’t remove it from my mind.
Despite the mostly tongue-in-cheek tone of that paragraph, it is true that this particular experience added to my dislike of pickles. For years, I’ve asked for sandwiches without pickle. I never eat the pickle they give you at restaurants. And I shudder when I hear that familiar crunch.
There are other food items — onions, peppers and tomatoes to name a few — that I dislike when I was younger but that I have since begun to tolerate and even enjoy. Not so for pickles. Until very recently, they remained the bane of my culinary existence.
Then came one fateful holiday party with our friends that changed everything.
The Pickle Dip
We went over to the house of our dear friends Calvin and Kyla for a “Friends-mas” celebration along with Calvin’s sister Brittini. We are all dear friends, and it’s a blast any time we get together. Amid all the festivities, my disdain for pickles was the furthest thing from my mind.
But it just so happened that Kyla had made a pickle dip for us to have that evening.
Now, not only was this dip made with pickle juice and not only did it have dill in it, but it also had chopped up pieces of pickle suspended in its midst. But before the memories of pickle juice running rampant over my fridge could rear their ugly head, I decided to just give it a try.
First of all, let me just be clear that Kyla is an absolutely fantastic cook. My trepidation had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she made it and everything to do with my irrational fear of pickles. And, I guess that’s just it.
Tastes can always change.
To forever write something off just because we disliked it in the past is pretty disingenuous when you think about it. The pickle dip was fantastic! And I never would have experienced it if I had continued to cower in my fear of pickles.
Now, will pickles suddenly become my favorite food? Probably not — though I could certainly eat that pickle dip any day of the week. But now that I enjoyed pickles in this fashion, I might just end up trying them on a sandwich. Or maybe even — GASP — by themselves. Who knows? All I know is that my taste buds are open to another choice, and that’s a good thing.
Trying It Ourselves
The experience was so revelatory for me that I even went along with it when Sarah offered to make it on Sunday for Cooking With Sarah. We happened to be back up at the Dale Susan Schoettle household once again, and we made it for dinner on Sunday night. It was the final day of 2017, and I think it was a wonderful note on which to close out the year.
Consider the past, yes, but don’t let it cripple you. Be open to new things. Try. Then try again.
I think I could use a few more helpings of all those in the coming year.
