I got word yesterday that a dear friend and neighbor from our years in Jackson, Tenn,, had passed away. Mrs. Lenora ‘Sissie’ Vinson would have turned 88 later this month. She was a widow, her husband having passed away many years before I came to know her at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. They didn’t have any children, and so Miss Sissie lived alone in her later years.
I remember many mornings when I would see her out in the yard, pulling weeds or raking, on my way back from taking my oldest son to school across town. I would pull off the road into her yard, and we would have a good talk. Miss Sissie didn’t drive, and occasionally she would ride with us to a Christmas party or a wedding. When I thought of it, I would ask her if she needed anything from the store. One time, she asked if I would pick up some eggs for her, and it reminded me that she always brought deviled eggs to church fellowships. They were the best I had ever had, and I asked her if she’d share her secret. “Why, honey, it’s the pickles. They’re homemade.” “Ah, I said. Maybe you could teach me how to make them sometime?” She said that she would.
And so it happened that we came to grow cucumbers in our small raised bed garden that summer. When I had what I thought was enough to make pickles, I called Miss Sissie and asked her for her recipe. She told me to get a large bucket with a lid, fill it almost full with ½ inch thick, sliced cucumbers, cover them with salt water (2 cups of salt per gallon), weigh them down with a plate, and call her in a week.
I did as I was told, running out to Wal-Mart in the meantime for jars so that I would be ready to can the next week. When I called her, she said, “Open up your bucket and drain off the water. There’ll be some stuff growing in there, but don’t worry about it. Just rinse off the cucumbers and put them in plain water. Call me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
I did as she said, glancing wistfully at the box of jars still sitting on the counter. The next day, I called Miss Sissie, certain that I was about to put those jars to use. She said, “Now, make you some alum water (2 teaspoons per quart of water), and pour enough on your cucumbers to just cover them. Weigh them down and call me the day after tomorrow.” I sighed, set the box of jars off the counter and into a corner, and did what she told me to do.
Two days later, I called Miss Sissie again. I was sure that I would finally be canning pickles that day. I could almost taste those yummy devilled eggs, made with my very own, homemade pickles. “Now, heat you some apple cider vinegar and pickling spices (1 tablespoon or more, to taste) to steaming and pour it over the cucumbers. Call me in a couple of days, and I’ll tell you what to do next.” I hung up the phone, shoved the box of jars into the closet, and slammed the door a little too hard.
As you can imagine, I was getting a little impatient with Miss Sissie about now. Of course, I minded my manners and tried not to let on. She was near 80, and I thought maybe she’d just forgotten how to make pickles and figured I’d give up and quit calling her eventually. Still, I persevered. Two days later, right on schedule, I called and asked Miss Sissie what to do. “Pour off the vinegar, but don’t rinse them. Put them back in the bucket in layers, putting a generous amount of sugar between each layer and then another inch or two of sugar on top. Stir them in a week.”
A week later, I stirred the pickles, dusted off the canning jar box, and called Miss Sissie. “Did you stir them?” she asked. “Yes. What now?” I asked. “Leave them another week.” I hung up the phone, put the lid back on the bucket, and banged my head against the wall several times.
A week later, I called her again, wary but too vested in the process to give up. “You’re done, honey,” Miss Sissie said. “Just put them into jars and make sure the lids are tight.” “You mean I don’t have to process them?” I asked. “No,” Miss Sissie answered. “They’ll be just fine. All that salt and sugar and vinegar has killed off anything that would make them spoil. Now, the longer they set, the better they’ll be, but you can eat them anytime.”
Some stupid part insisted on questioning her further about the lack of processing. “I think I’ll just go ahead and process them for a few minutes, just to be sure.” “No!” was her firm reply. “You’ll ruin them if you do. They won’t be crisp anymore.” So, figuring Miss Sissie hadn’t lived 80 years in the hot, West Tennessee sun without learning a thing or two, I relented. “Okay, if they’re good enough for you, they’re good enough for me.”
And they were indeed. We ate those unprocessed pickles for well over a year. I made a double batch the next year, and we ate those for two years or longer with never the hint of a digestive ailment. Miss Sissie obviously knew what she was talking about.
When I think about this story now, I laugh at myself and my inpatient foolishness. I see how wise Miss Sissie was, not just about the shelf stability of pickles but how well she read me. She knew that if she told a busy young mother up front that it would take a full month to make pickles, there would be no pickles made. I would have judged them too difficult and time consuming, and I would have spent the rest of my life buying my pickles at the grocery store. Instead of tipping her hand too soon, Miss Sissie patiently guided me through the process, step by step. Truth is, the whole process didn’t take an hour of my time altogether. Each step was short and simple, and the end result was something you can’t buy off the shelf at Wal-Mart. I always get compliments on my deviled eggs (and potato salad) now, and I always give Miss Sissie and her pickles the credit.
Now that Miss Sissie, with all her wisdom and gentle discernment, has gone on to be with her Lord, I wonder what opportunities I have missed out on because I judged something too hard or too much trouble and gave up before I even begun - or, worse yet, spoiled the end result because I didn’t trust the process of my own hard work.
I think I’ll try taking things one step at a time for a while. I’m going to start today. It just so happens that the farmers’ market is open and cucumbers are in season. I’ll wait a while to buy those canning jars this time.
Donna Brown Wilkerson is a lawyer, author and stay-at-home mom. The co-author of the book The Deliberation, she lives in Russellville with her husband, four children and a rescued Australian shepherd named ‘Tilly.’