Cucumbers of days past

One of my toes is covered with dried blood today, swelled twice its size. It isn't pretty. The reason for my disfigurement? Half classic klutz, half defective product, but all embarrassment: the handle of a 40-lb box of cat litter ripped off as I was carrying it this morning. At 6 a.m. While unloading it from our car on the street, wearing pajamas. (Of course.)

So I'm limping around today, kind of a straight-legged shuffle, which I am not very good at doing with any measure of grace. I'm normally a fast walker, weaving in and out of people to get where I'm trying to go as efficiently as possible. Not today. On my way back from lunch this afternoon (as I'm being passed by people in wheelchairs and tourists dragging suitcases), I had a vision that made me burst out laughing right on the sidewalk. (Ailing and crazy? That's me.) Suddenly I saw my late grandmother, smiling away and bringing up the rear with her cane or walker. "Here I come, Maggie," she liked to say. "Grandma Hippety-Hop."

Granddaughter Hippety-Hop was thinking of home a lot this weekend. We had pork tenderloin on the grill - a hometown fave - and a big pile of squash and zucchini from the market to cook. With North Carolina on the brain, I instinctively reached for the cast iron pan instead of my All-Clad, used butter instead of olive oil. It's the details that matter with hometown cooking.

I asked my mom for the family "recipe" for classic apple cider cucumbers, which are so simple that you can barely use the word recipe at all. Crisp and acidic and eaten hundreds of times with family, these cukes. My grandma and my mom would peel their cucumbers, but I left mine unskinned. I have so many memories featuring a bowl of these on the table, often ridged with a fork (as kids we thought the resulting "designs" were so cool) and usually kept cool with ice cubes. Cucumbers like these have heard all sorts of tales around tables over the years, don't you think?

Southern-Style Apple Cider Cucumbers

 

- Keep the skin on or take it off - your choice. Slice your cucumbers thin. 

- Fill with ice water and salt and let them soak.

- Just before eating, empty our your cukes, rinse with fresh water and pour in apple cider vinegar until they're just covered.

- Grind in some pepper and throw in some ice cubes, and you're done!

 

If you're not eating this for nostalgic family purposes, I'd mix up your vinegars and add in fresh herbs. Rice wine vinegar + dill! White wine vinegar + oregano! And so on. Heck, throw in feta, onion, and tomato while you're at it and make it a meal. I think my grandma might even like that dish.