Hello there.

Before I start rambling about the season’s favorite staple — garlic scapes! — I would like to make an announcement. (“Announcement.” As if there is an audience out there waiting, with baited breath, for whatever it is that I have to say. I have been selected to write the next installment in the epic tale of a young wizard. I am going to make my wildly popular smart phone available on the Verizon Wireless network. I am resigning in shame from Congress.)

After three years of producing this blog via Blogger, I am going to give Tumblr a try. Because I dislike Blogger with the seething rage of a billion hot suns, and life is much too short to despise your blogging platform. An example of the insidious horribleness of Blogger: I was actually excited, just then, when I typed those phrases up there in that first paragraph in italics, that Tumblr actually published them in italics. To get italics to publish properly on Blogger, you have to make at least 64 keystrokes, publish and revise the post at least four times, procure an eye of newt, replace a golden fertility idol with a bag of sand of equal weight, then steal third base.

We’ll see how this experiment goes; if I keep publishing in italics successfully, who knows, I might move the whole blogging enterprise over here. Stay tuned! Italics!

Onto the subject at hand: garlic scapes, one of the season’s most popular and trendy ingredients (along with ramps). I live down the street from a couple of science teachers who started cultivating garlic on their property. In what seems like just a few short years, they’ve grown their modest agrarian entrepreneurial enterprise into no small measure of regional notoriety. They’ve also grown a lot of delicious garlic. When the Thaxtons start selling their produce at my town’s farmers’ market, people come running.

Of course, in June, the produce they’re selling does not include garlic, as the bulbs are still nestled in the soil, growing, maturing, awaiting harvest. In June, therefore, the Thaxtons sell garlic scapes. The scapes’ beguiling bright green shoots clutter their market table, perfuming the immediate area with a modest whisper of garlic. The scapes, with their curlicue tendrils, beckon, tightly coiled, waiting for someone to come along and cook them into something divine.

I buy the scapes every season and invariably someone asks me, “What are you going to do with all those scapes?” A few years ago, I made turkey burgers studded with minced scapes and stuffed with inappropriately-sized hunks of goat cheese. This year, I’m pickling the scapes. I love pickles, perhaps in an obsessive and irrational way. So while everyone under the sun seems to be making garlic scape pesto with their farmers’ market hauls, I will be pickling.

The recipe is based on the beloved dilly bean. It’s simple, and quick, and you might already have all the ingredients on hand: garlic, vinegar, pickling salt, dill. And scapes. That’s it.

I could tell you all the wonderful things you could do with your pickled scapes, but I seem to be limiting myself to two: (1) chop them up and add them to homemade thousand island dressing; and (2) eat them straight out of the jar.

Or should I write: eat them straight out of the jar.

++++++

DILLY SCAPES

Adapted from Canning Across America

1 bunch garlic scapes (about 20 scapes)

4 T. canning and pickling salt

2 c. white vinegar

2 c. water

4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half

1 t. dried dill, divided

Place two empty pint Ball jars in a large pot or stock pot and add water until the jars are covered by at least one inch. Remove jars, cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. Sterilize the jars by placing them in the boiling water for about 10 minutes. For the last 3 of those 10 minutes, add the lids and rings to sterilize them as well. Remove the sterilized jars and lid pieces and set aside. Keep the water in the pot at a simmer.

Trim the garlic scapes below flower head, removing the flower head and thinner portion of the scape above the head. Cut each scape to 4 1/2-inch lengths, which allow them to fit into the canning jars with adequate headroom. If the scapes are curved, don’t worry. They’ll fit in the jar just fine.

Combine salt, vinegar and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and keep hot.

Add the trimmed garlic scapes to the sterilized jars. Add two of the split garlic cloves and 1/4 t. of the dill to each of the jars. Slowly pour the hot vinegar mixture into the jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space.

Using a paper towel, wipe the rim of each jar, then place the lid on the jar. Place the jars into the stock pot. Bring the water in the stock pot back up to a boil, and process the pint jars for 10 minutes in boiling water. (Make sure you start timing the 10 minutes when the water has reached a boil.)

After 10 minutes, remove the jars from the pot and wait for the familiar, comforting “ping” of a properly canned jar of goods.

Enjoy at will! (Though if you let the jars sit for a few days or weeks, the flavors will mingle even more.)

Makes 2 preserved and shelf-stable pint jars of dilly scapes.

++++++

Previously, on A Stove With A House Around It:

One year ago: banana bread with coconut and pecans

Two years ago: garlic scape and goat cheese turkey burgers (ha!)

Three years ago: roasted olives and marinated Pecorino