Back to basics 2.0...Campaign working! Plus, what's more basic than pickling something?

I mentioned I have a mentor, a gent who's been helping me with my surfing.  He pointed out that I had plateaued, (okay he basically said I sucked!) and that I needed to go back and master some basic ocean skills if I want to be a better, and more important, a braver surfer.  I felt totally bummed out about that.  I thought I was doing pretty good.  I resisted the idea of starting from scratch. In fact, it felt to me like some kind of failure.  But deep down I knew he was right.  So the past few sessions I've been out have mostly been about leaving the board on the beach and just relearning how to manage waves.  In fact the truth is this is probably the way I should have started.  On my first surfing lesson a while back, we just plunged into the ocean at Zuma and tried to catch waves.  I didn't really reveal all my ocean phobias to my teacher, and that was my mistake. I think it was because I was embarrassed about it. I mean, really, who wants to say, 'I am afraid of drowning'.  So I kept my mouth shut and tried to power through it, but when you have a real phobia about something, what I am learning is it's best to confront it head on.

But the other day I had what I consider a real breakthrough. In the past, if I got up on a wave, more often then not, I'd wipe out somewhere right in the impact zone. For anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about, this is right where the waves break. It's not the best place to be for a couple of reasons, the most important being, depending on whether or not it's a short or long period swell, but another wave will most likely be upon you sooner or later, so it's good to get out of the way.  My method of doing that involved finding my board as soon as possible and racing to get back on it in a quasi-panic.  This is wrong.  What I've learned to do first is look to see what the waves are doing.  If another wave is coming you might have to dive through it.  Just push the board away and forget it! Which was hard for me, because for some reason I considered the board a safe zone.  But it's not really.  The safe zone is back in the line-up but you might have to wait a bit to get there and that's okay. Anyway, the other day, the breakthrough was just practicing in the impact zone with my board and diving through waves when I had to and just staying calm.  I'm not completely over my fears, but we are definitely making strides.

When I got home, like I always do, I was hosing down the Greco and my wetsuit when I noticed our Jalapeño plant was bursting with peppers! I mean, look at this, which is only part of the harvest.

Sam doesn't really eat them, and don't even ask about the time Derric the Beagle once swallowed half of one before I could get it out of his mouth. Well, one person can only eat so many Jalapeños, right?  I've already given some away, but then I thought about pickling them, which is also sort of a back-to-basics kind of thing to do, isn't it?  And I was just in that kind of a mood.

But I'd never pickled anything before so some research was required (btw, I wasn't planning on canning them for long-term storage.  Just a quick pickle that would last in the refrigerator for a month or so). Somewhere recently I'd discovered Lisa Fain and her really cool Homesick Texan blog, cookbooks, etc.  She recently posted a recipe for Zucchini pickles, so using that as a template I made a few small changes, mostly because there were certain things I didn't have on hand. Also, some recipes I looked at call for sugar, but I didn't want them sweet so I didn't add any. But here's a link to Lisa Fain's site www.homesicktexan.com if you want to check out the original zucchini recipe, or check out all the great recipes actually because there's many.  So if you have a lot of Jalapeños on hand, and you want to try pickling something, here goes.

1/4 pound Jalapeños
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon powdered mustard
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 cup water, plus more warm water if needed
3/4 cup white vinegar
1 sterilized 8 ounce jar with lid and band
*note:  to sterilize jar, lid and band you can either run through the dishwasher or place in a pot of boiling water for five minutes.

1. Slice the Jalapeños into 1/4 inch slices (I suppose if you want them a little milder you could remove some of the seeds, but I didn't).
2. Place the minced garlic, salt, peppercorns, mustard and cumin in the sterilized jar.  Pack in the Jalapeño slices.  But really pack them in pretty tightly.  They will shrink when you add the hot liquid.  I learned this because I started out with two jars, but it turned out they'd all fit in one.
3. In a medium pot, bring water and vinegar to boil.  Pour the liquid over the Jalapeños.  Add warm water if needed, but leave 1/2 inch headspace. Screw on lid. Give the jar a shake.  Refrigerate for 24 hours before tasting. Pickled jalapeños will keep in the refrigerator, tightly sealed, for about a month.

Here's a few pics of the process:

Here are the Jalapeños in the jar, just after adding the liquid.

As you can see, I should have packed the slices in much tighter.  So learn from my mistake.  Here's the final product, all in one jar.  They are very tasty, a little spicy, but that's good.

 So get back to basics.  Pickle something!