The following is an online extra from the Spring/Summer 2020 edition of Dine, included with our April issue and heading to newsstands soon.
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Each month a group of pickle lovers gathers for the Artisan Pickle Club meeting, where they share new pickled creations, funky ferments and store-bought faves. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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(From left) Artisan Pickle Club Founders Ashley Ray and Larkin Garbee can often be found decked out in briny attire. (Photo courtesy Artisan Pickle Club)
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A table of pickled offerings during an Artisan Pickle Club meeting before Valentine's Day (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Veteran pickler Kelli Hughes Jordan traveled to the meeting from Fredericksburg and brought an array of jars, including the Latin American sauerkraut known as cortido and black radish kimchi. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Club members sample and socialize. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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A latecomer to the meeting brought pickled corn. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Garbee happily samples during the meeting. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
Arranged on high-top tables are jars of different shapes and sizes and bowls brimming with brine-soaked carrots, black radish kimchi, pickled fennel and fermented eggplant with oregano.
A bouquet of cucumber spears, peppers, mushrooms and olives adorns one tabletop, an ode to Valentine’s Day, which at the time of this gathering is just a week away. Center of the Universe (COTU) Brewing Company in Ashland is home base for these casual monthly meetings of local pickle lovers, a judgement-free zone where one's brine ingredients and salinity levels are common topics of conversation.
The Artisan Pickle Club was formed in 2015 by Ashley Ray and Larkin Garbee — who together possess some very stylish pickle-themed wardrobe items, including a dress accented with jars that Ray wore that night — after the duo realized they had a common passion.
“It started with just Larkin and [me] eating pickles together in her office,” Ray says of the early days. “Then we invited more people … and we’re always adding new pickle lovers.”
The meeting is like any social gathering, the co-mingling and congregating taking place directly around the food. No one here is shy, grabbing plates and stabbing at tart yellow-tinged cauliflower, bread and butter chips, and asparagus.
“I’m amazed at the array of interesting pickles we get to taste at Pickle Club,” Ray says. “We’ve had ramps, raisins, baloney, cherries … so many interesting things from all over!”
A friend of Ray and Garbee’s and a pickler for a decade, Kelli Hughes Jordan traveled to the meeting from Fredericksburg and is among the first to arrive, toting jars of kimchi, traditional cortido and double garlic-dill sauerkraut with hand-written blue labels.
Two women arrive noticeably late, their tardiness quickly forgiven when they pull out a jar of pickled corn, the unicorn of the night. I add a generous scoop of the golden kernels onto my plate, then, after a quick glance around to make sure no one is watching, I double up on my serving.
Further down the table Aaron Novak, a 20-year pickler who has graduated from beginner-level dills to seasonal ingredients such as peanuts, showcases his pickled fennel. Novak is a two-time winner at the Pickled and Fermented Festival, the annual celebration hosted by the club approaching its fifth year, most recently for his pickled gala apples.
A member of the pickle club since its inception, Bridgette Kelly arrives with a blue cooler that immediately attracts my attention. Last year Kelly visited farmers to seek out heirloom watermelon seeds to pickle the resulting fruit with a sour version of COTU’s Pocahoptas IPA.
Grant Collier, co-founder of Richmond's Wild Earth Fermentation, breaks out a curried okra for the gathering. He knows the crowd, and although okra is often thrown a lot of shade, here it has an opportunity to be appreciated.
While the array of pickles is impressive, it’s the array of bonds formed over these ferments that makes the club special. “I love all the friendships I’ve made,” Ray says, adding that Garbee is her “partner in brine.”
Ray says she has traveled to Pittsburgh for Picklesburgh, an annual gathering of 200,000 for three days of all things pickled; she has made pickles to support a friend raising money for St. Baldrick’s childhood cancer charity; and over five years she has organically grown a community of people who explore, share and celebrate something they all love.
“This all started because [Larkin and I] discovered our mutual love for pickles,” Ray says. “We are close friends because we bonded over pickles. That was the genius of Pickle Club and the pickle festival.”
Artisan Pickle Club meetings typically take place monthly at Center of the Universe Brewing Company in Ashland; visit the club's page on Meetup or its Facebook page for updates about future gatherings.
