Get your vinegar on

A group of New Orleans chefs get together occasionally to can seasonal produce, boilers included (this wonderful article even includes a "pickling primer"):

At Dante's Kitchen, house-pickled green beans and pickled okra, which garnish Bloody Marys, decorate the shelves of the back bar, along with lots of other jars of vegetables. The restaurant has between 300 and 400 canning jars in rotation, Loubier estimates. Sous chef Mike Doyle uses his grandmother's recipe to make watermelon pickles.... Sous chef Doyle says last year the staff pickled boiled peanuts in Coca-Cola and rice vinegar."Oh, man! That was a great thing!" Loubier exclaims. "I think peanuts were my favorite last year."

Meanwhile, back in Georgia, Ashley Tusan Joyner wrote last year (in the Macon Telegraph) about the pickled boiled peanuts that were available at City Market on the Green. The market has already re-opened for 2009. It's Saturdays 9:00 to 1:00 pm, through 19 December in downtown Macon. The article link is archive-only, now, and we never got around to writing about it. But Ashley was kind enough to elaborate via email. The vendor, name of Holloway, uses "cider vinegar, kosher salt, garlic cloves and one other ingredient I can’t quite recall."

(photo nola.com)