Store Bought Is Better

dill weed

If asked, I'll bet most of you would probably say that anything home-made is better; better tasting, more appealing to the eye, and better for you. In the case of my home-made dill pickles, you'd be dead wrong.

I'm not exactly Suzy Homemaker, but I am a pretty fair cook... except for my attempt at making home-made pickles. They tasted like digits dipped in gasoline-gone-bad. I don't understand how I made such awful tasting cucumbers. Maybe it was the dill I grew in my garden or maybe I followed the recipe wrong or maybe someone left out something in the recipe on purpose, but the pickles were just awful.

Since the pickle escapade, I tried using the dill in a potato salad recipe and it tasted great, so I know it's not the dill. Good friends who share recipes are trustworthy, so I really don't think they'd leave out a key ingredient. Then I double checked the jars I put the pickles in just to see if anything in the jar was suspect. And there it was!

A spider the size of New York State was nestled in and around the dill weed. It was the worst looking thing you ever saw. It was big enough to emit an awful taste, but I don't think the spider was the culprit. It didn't matter.  I threw out all the jars of pickles and decided that store bought is better.