Cultured Pickle Shop

"I'd like a pickle"
"A pickle? What kind of pickle? Parsnip? Turnip? Curried Carrot? What?"
"Uh. A pickle."

There's a sign outside of Cultured pickle shop in Berkeley, CA, that says Pickle Shop. Which makes sense. It seems like one of the most logical phrases to put on a sign intended for placement in front of such a shop. Sure, it might strike a more poetically minded person as a bit on the nose. Not a lot of subtext. Little intrigue. Just the facts, ma'am. And sure, there are more verbose, stylistic options. Ye Olde Dispensary of Brine Bathed Curiosities comes to mind. The Lactobacillus Enriched Vegetable Emporium, perhaps. But in terms of verbal economy, Pickle Shop has it pegged. Why then, does this paragon of linguistic efficiency induce a steady stream of slightly befuddled customers, staggering into the shop, unable to acquire the vinegar-soaked, dill-laden cucumber they envisioned, like some poor sap requesting Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Loved You" at a vintage vinyl snob-shop? As anyone who's as big a nerd about anything as Alex Hozven is about pickles can tell you, when you spend the majority of your waking hours obsessing over some silly (yet completely fascinating and wonderful) little thing, it's easy to lose perspective. For most people, a pickle is a sour cucumber. For Hozven, a pickle is an alchemical marvel of lactic-acid fermentation; a vegetable, as the Japanese put it, altered without the use of heat. Whether it be standards like kimchee and sauerkraut, or more unusual fare such as picked blood oranges, kasu carrots, which utilize the filtered-off byproduct of sake, or the flash-pickling microbial hotbed of the nuka pot, it's all pickles to her. So if all you want is a dill cucumber, you can probably get one. You just have to know what to ask for. 

The Curious Cook: Harold McGee

If you’re anything like us, you want to know why things happen they way they do, especially in the kitchen. For example, why does meat have to “rest” before slicing into it? Why do eggs get a greenish/bluish band when they cook too long? What’s an anthocyanin? From home cooks to professional chefs, there is one profound resource that everyone turns to: the seminal book by Harold McGee - On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, initially published in 1984 (and greatly updated in 2004). As a food science writer, McGee focuses mostly on explaining why things happen from a chemistry perspective, and things really heat up when he starts to debunk conventional kitchen wisdom. He writes a blog, The Curious Cook, and teaches at the French Culinary Institute, but mainly you'll find his unique perspective present in a steady flow of articles in publications like the New York Times, Nature, and Health, covering everything from the toxic myth of tomato leaves to the invisible ingredient in every kitchen. Go to him. He knows.