Pickled
I came to this city from the plain Midwest hating pickles. Eating olives literally made me gag. Like one time my mom had me try a small half of a black olive from a can and I threw it up into the garbage. It was super dramatic.
Cut to me in New York, in my 20s, living like a glowing pregnant savant, sampling all the city’s finest, briniest pickles and the saltiest olives at the best tapas spots.
Is there something about this city that makes you a pickle person? They even sell pickles on the street in the West Village out of a barrel from some guy who sits under a tent with barrels of pickles. Is that guy still there anymore? It’s usually in the summer and one time there was a man with a HUGE live pig in a cart outside the pickle barrel tent and I was like what the HELL is going on here, I need to get a picture of this. And the man with the pig chased me and my friend down the street and he literally told me to delete the picture from my phone or pay him $30 for the picture of his big pig in his cart. Me and my friend were incredulous. I was like, yeah sure, I deleted it. I of course did not. How often do you see a live wild boar on the streets of the West Village on a hot summer evening? Like, get out buddy. This was years ago, that pig probably has an Instagram now.
Anyway. Now I love pickles, sauerkraut, olives, you name it. I’ll eat pickled carrots. I’ve even pickled watermelon rinds and cherries at home - cause why not. I’ve come a long way from throwing up half an olive.
