To Pickle a Carrot.

Some people [see photo at right] would have the world think that I called in sick to work yesterday because I was out of pickles. This is not true. I called in sleepy to work because I was sleepy. I didn't remedy the pickle situation until after I woke up.

To pickle a carrot, you first need carrots. Peel them and cut them up into sticks, about 3 inches long by 1/3 inch thick. In addition to having a quick blanching time and being a good size for a pickled snack, they also make excellent practice Wolverine claws.

Blanch these carrot sticks in boiling, salted water for pretty much exactly one minute, then immediately drain and rinse very thoroughly with cold water (or put them in an ice bath) to stop the cooking.

Then you make the brine. (This is the most important part, obviously, because otherwise you'd just have blanched carrots.) You start by combining 1 and 1/4 cups of water with 1 cup of cider vinegar, which according to my measuring cup is equal to the volume of 1,000 kernels of sweet corn.

To that, you add 1/4 cup sugar, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of kosher salt, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of dill seed, and two lightly crushed cloves of garlic. Bring to a boil then simmer for 2 minutes.

When that's done, pour the brine over the carrot sticks (which should now be in a heat-proof container, by the way), and let them cool completely on the counter before fridging them in an air-tight container for at least 24 hours before enjoying.

Or, in my case, enjoy them straight out of the warm brine twenty minutes later.

Thanks for the tried and true recipe Gourmet Magazine!
I am happy. :-)