Here’s my final, unvarnished advice: Eat your pickles within the first year. Label your jars with a Sharpie and a date because your brain will not remember if that pickle was from the “Before Times” or the “Era of Grown-Up Responsibilities.” If you open a jar and the pickle crunches like a fresh autumn leaf, you win. If it squishes like a wet sock, compost it.
And if you find a jar from 2015? Don’t. Just don’t. That’s not a snack; that’s your inheritance.
