ABSTRACT THURSDAY

Last night I told myself that “enough was enough” and 9 gherkins, a variety of cucumber, in the fridge just had to be dealt with, so I sliced them up, salted them and put them in a large plastic container.

When I went into the kitchen before I went up to bed, I could smell that wonderful fresh gherkin/cucumber smell - and when I looked into the container thought that they would make a good photograph for the Abstract Thursday challenge so I played around with my GoArt App and here it is.

The gherkins and cucumbers have gone mad in the greenhouse this year, but the tomatoes are very slow to turn red, and Mr. HCB tells me there are more cucumbers - so apart from having cucumber or gherkin sandwiches every single day for lunch and also having them with our evening salad, when we are not having a stir fry, there isn’t much else to do except pickle them.

Later I will boil up some vinegar with some of Mr. HCB’s home-grown garlic, which will make the house smell even more, put them into Kilner jars and enjoy them during the rest of the year.  I’ve never pickled gherkins or cucumbers before, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.  I had some American friends many years ago, when I was quite young, and remember that wonderful pickled gherkin smell, but I think they called them dill pickles, whenever we had a meal - actually it brought back lots of memories.

So - is a gherkin or a cucumber a fruit or a vegetable?  You choose!

 "Botanically speaking, 
     tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, 
          just as are cucumbers, 
               squashes, beans and peas."
Horace Gray