“What you up to today?”
“Heading over to Workshop to teach a pickling class.”
“Pickling class?”
“Yeah, I run my own business called McVicker’s Pickles and I love to share the process with people and inspire them to get creative in the kitchen. Pickling, canning and other food preservation techniques are inherently communal—they lend themselves well to collaboration. There’s nothing better than getting together in the kitchen with a group of friends on the weekend and creating something together. ”
“How’d you get into pickling?”
“After graduating from Duke with a BA in International Studies, I spent almost ten years working in the women’s human rights field. It was rewarding work, and a part of me really loved it, but another part of me felt like I was dying a slow death sitting in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day. I left my job to travel and figure out what I wanted to do next, and started experimenting more and more with pickling and canning, revisiting the recipes I grew up with in Kansas and tweaking them. I pickled my first vegetable when I was probably 8 or 9. In fact, when I was home for Christmas I came across a jar of pickled beets I’d made for my grandpa that he’d kept for probably 20 years. And—by the way—the seal was still good, though I definitely wouldn’t eat them 🙂
About the time I ran into an old friend, Kelly Malone, who founded Workshop SF and Indie Mart and is an all around DIY badass. She was looking for someone to teach pickling classes at Workshop, and also encouraged me to set up a booth at the next Indie Mart. The timing was right and things just fell into place. I entered three of my recipes in the Eat Real Festival’s DIY food contest and my recipes all won 1st place in their respective categories. That really gave me the push to go legit and make McVicker Pickles into something real. ”