Camacho Watcho

Yikes! That does sound like an odd name for a post, but look at the picture…it’s a Big Papa Pickle, what can I say? You might be wondering where I acquired such a big pickle and that, my friend, is a fine story indeed.

Kyle went to Chicago awhile back and decided that he needed to bring me a gift. That does sound sweet, doesn’t it? In reality, he and our friend Jeff thought this big pickle was pretty darn funny when they saw it in a gas station in Chicago and then decided that I was destined to have this pickle brought home to me. You might wonder how Kyle got this pickle from Chicago to Minneapolis, given the restrictions on carrying liquids onto an airplane. Let’s just say that putting a bag containing a big pickle through the security checkpoint sounds like it was quite an interesting scenario.

At the airport the woman at the checkpoint took Kyle’s bag aside, rummaged through, and pulled out…you guessed it…the Big Papa Pickle. With a brow raised and a smirk on her face, she told Kyle that he couldn’t bring the pickle through. To which Kyle responded, “but it’s just pickle juice.” Apparently that somehow worked because just hours later Kyle was safely in Minneapolis, with the Big Papa Pickle.

This pickle sat in our refrigerator until this past Friday night. We had some friends over to grill before the Twins game and thought that it was the perfect situation to break out Big Papa. We boiled some brats in beer and finished them on the grill. Our toppings were diced ketchup, mustard, diced onions, pepper rings, and spears of the Big Papa Pickle. Overall I think the pickle really added something to the brat. I love the crunch of a pickle spear alongside a brat or hot dog.

In hindsight, however, I do wish I had done some research before planning my meal. Although Van Holten’s manufactures their ‘pickle-in-a-pouch’ in Wisconsin, this particular pickle grew up in Chicago. Had I considered that before I would have looked into the true Chicago-style hot dog and definitely would have gone with that theme to make Big Papa feel right at home…on a Chicago-style dog.

Tags: Food

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Customs, Food, General, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.