in the the land of pickles, the clear topped jar is king.

 Monkey see, monkey do.  I went over the a food event at the SF Ferry building last weekend and tasted some delicious pickled goods from Happy Girl Kitchen, and in addition to serious pantry envy (even though theirs is a store display), I was inspired to get pickling on my own.  And, also at the ferry building I found the the jam jars I didn't even know I needed to have, but now my life feels a little more complete: Weck jars.  These seriously beautiful glass jars feature glass tops with a rubber gasket and clips to keep it all together.  A little research reveals that these are actually the types of jars used previous to the more common pop top lid jars we have today.  Probably for good reason; they're trickier to use and to get a good seal which is so important for food safety.  But, you can deny that these are just more pretty.

While googling around on how to even use these things I came across some wonderful looking pickle (both processed and refrigerator) recipes that looked so temping I had to use my jars the very next day.  It's really cool seeing your item through the tops of the lids! 

 I've got some dill and garlic pickles, and red onion pickles.  The red onion looks a bit crazy due to there being red wine vinegar in with the red onions and I think that purple red is sort of leaching out.  I can't wait to try the onions on burgers this week.  Not sure how long I can wait before popping open the dill pickles - I think I need to let them age to get to the proper level of pickledness but it will be hard!

I had to process the pickles twice.  The second time the gasket tab did the proper "stick your tongue out down" look that indicates a good seal.