I - Infusion

Tea, a drink that's been around since I don't know when. Who came up with the idea? Steep water with a plant leaf and then drink it. Simple concept. I wonder how many different plant species were tried until stumbling on the tea leaf. Personally, I don't think the tea leaf was the final answer. The best tea I drink is sweet tea but that's more straight sugar-water than anything.

Marinades. Ahhhhh, food soaked in a fluid of spices and tasty liquids which, when cooked, presents a tender juicy and scrumptious...GREAT PIECE OF FOOD! Be it beef or chicken or pork, I love marinated meat. Yes, I'm sure fruits and vegetables could be marinated but nothing has ever stood out like a great piece of juicy meat.

"What the heck do tea and marinades have to do with each other," you are asking. Infusion. Infusion is the process of introducing a new flavor into an existing food via liquid. In the case of tea, the final drink is known as an infusion.

The best example of infusion is pickling. Pickling is a rather easy process. Introduce ANYTHING into a flavored water/vinegar solution and in time, you'll get pickles. Apple pickles, pear pickles, peach pickles, cucumber pickles (a.k.a. pickles), carrots, anything you can slice and fit in a jar. Alright, peaches might not be a good idea but I'm game for trying - just not today. Sunday evening rolled around and I was ready to pickle something, anything, I was ready to re-pickle a pickle!

Ever get a strange feeling of deja vu? Ah, never mind.

Introducing...the ever popular, always available, bread and butter pickles. Don't ask where the name came from, as there are neither bread nor butter in the recipe. Just me and the kitchen to produce the best tasting, worst smelling pickles you've ever seen. Here's the thing, when the wife is cooking Mexican in the same kitchen as "The Pickler," you get some mighty weird scents...BUT I WAS ITCHING TO PICKLE SO NOTHING WAS GOING TO STOP ME.

Bread and butter pickles are an infusion of water, apple vinegar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, pickling spices, turmeric, and a little kosher salt. The infusion is boiled and then simmered for approximately four minutes. Then, the infusion is poured over diced cucumbers and yellow onions, sealed, and refrigerated for a few days. As of this writing, it's been 19 hours. My best calculations put me chomping into my first homemade pickle on Wednesday evening - after work. That's another important part of infusions, time.

Time for tea, time for marinades, time for pickles, time, time, TIME. Food infusions don't allow for quick results. Most new kitchen recipes can produce a taste of failure or success within an hour or so. Infusions, instant tea not included, take more time.

The next time I write, I'll tell you how my pickles faired. And now some parting words from Arlo...

I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want a tickle
'Cause I'd rather ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want to die
I just want to ride on my motorcy...cle

See my other blog for my pickling perplexities.