Since I was young, I have LOVED pickles.  Not just liked pickles, but loved them.  I remember my mom and I picking cucumbers in the garden, making the pickling mixture and packing them tightly into a jar.  I couldn’t wait to try them after they had officially been “pickled.” When at a restaurant, I always ask for extra pickles, even if it means only one little extra one.  I have passed on this love of pickles to my kids as well.  We fight over one if someone gets a pickle next to their sandwich and others do not.  It’s become our “thang.”

I was so excited to see that pickles were a part of the IP protocol.  It is what I put into my tuna or what I gladly eat on the side of any meal.

Have I ever found the perfect pickle you ask? I have come darn close. Erik’s deli has awesome pickles and for a while they sold them in jars. I would go every few weeks to get a jar, but all of a sudden they stopped selling them. Ever since, I have been on the search for another great pickle.

For spring break, my kids and I decided to start the “Pickle Quest” to find a great pickle.

There are SO many pickles to chose from just at the local grocery store, thus we decided to start with 6 kinds and go from there.  We took into consideration crunch, color and flavor and boy its amazing how different they were.  Some were delicious, finishing the jar within a couple days and some were outright disgusting (girls reaction pictured above). But we thought it was super fun to compare ingredients and decided that Vlasic always provides a solid pickle no matter what the pickling flavor was (Safeway brand was a surprising close second.)  We don’t think we have found the perfect one just yet, but we are getting there. Will head to another grocery store this week to continue our search.

Spending time with my kids is always precious, even if its on a silly pickle quest, but I hope daily that my new found healthy eating is rubbing off on them both in day to day eating and in memory. So for now, the pickle quest continues . . . And quite possibly, the perfect pickle is the one we have to make from our own garden. Here is what we started today . . .