Artichoke Pickle

I’m 36, single, with no kids, and I'll be the last Small if I don’t have a son. I stumbled across this fun fact a few years ago on ancestry.com while working on my first manuscript and needed to build out our family tree. Research, I guess.

It feels so egotistical to talk about. Even writing that made me cringe a little. Like I’m so important that everyone’s watching. “I do wish you would hurry up and get to work, son.” My mother will occasionally say. But besides her wanting more grandkids, nobody’s watching, and nobody cares. Our name just ain’t all that special.

Building a visual genealogical diagram outlining our lineage did, however, provide solid feedback on why I am the way I am. Not just my fabulous hair and large shoe size but things like newspaper articles, yearbook pictures, job positions, graduations, marriages, divorces, military records, haircuts, eye problems, and death certificates. The only thing it didn’t seem to know were first cars, favorite movies, and family recipes.

“But wait! There’s more!” Billy Mays, the legendary late-night television pitchman, would say, convincing you at 1:13am, in your underwear, you had to have the secret power of OxiClean. And what did millions of us do? Bought it.

Sometimes we get so caught up in what we want to hear or see we become convinced we’ve been wearing dirty clothes. That's what pitchmen do. They show up and convince us they have the secret ingredient. They’re gonna help us will all our problems. Problems we didn’t realize we had. Of course, they only seem to show up when they have the secret solution, but never will they work to find the ingredients with you.

While the picture above may look like Dirt's tongue is in a jar of Southern goodness, looks can be deceiving. And this is especially true when emotions are involved. Just ask Van Gogh.

In the image, along with a blue heeling cow dog and an old jeep, is a few jars of Artichoke Pickle – a family recipe. It's technically a relish, but that's the thing about family recipes. You get to call it whatever you want. And it’s insanely good. Most of my family hides it when I come over. I’m an artichoke pickle junkie.

Interestingly, the most popular ingredient in a family recipe is the secret itself. Sometimes referred to as denial, depending on which part of the South you’re in.

If you don’t have a family recipe, bake a casserole, give it a unique name, and voila. Dirt’s recipe is “Dirt’s Famous Raw Turkey Neck,” and Mud’s working on his. It’s a dried liver deal he’s trying to perfect. He keeps eating all the samples.

Dirt and Muds recipes are simple. One ingredient. They believe secret ingredients portray a sense of importance and a false sense of control. Revealing secrets is to uncover faults. Faults make us less important and feel unlovable.

How many dogs do you know like artichoke pickle? None. Not that I've ever seen. Even Mud won’t touch it, and he eats raw rat poison. So our logic should kick in and tell us that Dirt is not eating the artichoke pickle, and the fact it looks like he’s eating it would be to convey his love for it.

Families, like recipes, require different ingredients to rely on each other to taste good. They can’t do it alone. Not everyone is going to like the recipe. And not everyone cares. It’s special, yes. But it doesn’t make us special.

I am not saying to reveal the secrets of your family recipe to the world. I would never give up what it takes to make artichoke pickle. But I am saying, reveal the ingredients to your family. The ingredients that make you, you.

So true to my word, here’s what you do. Scoop a few spoonfuls of the pickle and place it in a separate container. Then place a small cut out of plastic wrap on top of the pickle from the jar you want Dirt to lick up. Then place a piece of Costco rotisserie chicken on the plastic wrap. It looks like Dirt is eating an artichoke pickle.

How does it go again?

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Mark Twain