Canning is on this summer's to do list and really great pickles are one of the key items I hope to create and store. I grew up with home canned goods. They were something my grandmother was proud of. She canned beautiful peaches, tomatoes, green beans and applesauce, but she could never make a good pickle.  My mother couldn't either. They were either too big, too rubbery, vinegary or salty.

    I didn't know kitchen gardeners could make better pickles than store bought until my friend in gardening, Jean, introduced my family to her recipe. Jean's pickles are super crunchy with a perfect balance of dill, garlic and salt. They also pack a little heat because she adds a chili to each jar. Her inspiring Kosher dill-type recipe is a keeper, but it's also lead me down the path of finding exceptional recipes for other pickle types, slightly sweet German dills, bread and butters and cornichons. Choosing the perfect cucumber variety is also essential for creating the perfect pickle.

    My pickling cucumbers for this season will be Franchi Sementi's 'Picollo di Parigi' and some German gherkins my mother-in-law gave us seed for. Jean's favorite is John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seed's, 'Parisienne Cornichon de Bourbonne.' Once our cucumber vines are producing, it's essential we pick the cukes at the right stage in development. Those destined to become cornichons must be really tiny--no longer than two inches in length. Kosher dills should be a little bigger, maybe three inches, and the bread and butters just a little bigger because they'll be sliced. Super fresh cucumbers make the best pickles so all will be canned the day of harvest (At least six productive cucumber vines are necessary to accomplish this).

This summer, when I'm in the making stages, I'll post Jean's recipe. For all other recipes I try, I plan to user her packing method, because she manages to keep them amazingly crisp--something that's really hard to do.

    A little Web surfing led me to a few other really good looking recipes. The bread and butter pickles at Simply Recipes look very nice as do Arthur Schwartz's recipe for kosher dills on David Lebovitz's Website. I also encourage readers of this blog to share good pickle recipes. Dilly beans and okra pickles are also in my pickling plans, so fire away.