On doing anything...but not everything.
A note from the pickle patch (that isn’t being planted this year)
I will not be planting a garden this year.
Even as I type it, I can hear the voice in my head telling me I could just run out and sow a few salads or plant the almost dead peas that have withered in seed trays for weeks.
But, I’m not going to.
My father always used to say, “You can do anything you want. Just not everything.” He wasn’t wrong.
In this season of start up life that involves 10 hour production days bracketed by hours of admin on each side…
I can either thin the carrots or go to Georgia’s school award ceremony.
I can plant seeds or make dinner.
I can weed the cabbages or work on pulling together launch materials for a new product collaboration.
There is a finite amount of time I have available and the garden just isn’t close to the top of the list.
Gosh, it feels sacrilegious to even write that!! I committed 15 years of my life to growing food for my family…and not only that, I taught thousands of other people to do the same. I didn’t ever imagine that business would change and develop, that I would find a business partner who shared a vision or that the vision would involve us making pickles (in fact, most of you have probably heard me swear that I would NEVER have a product-based business).
But businesses and life evolves and you just can’t predict where it is going to go.
And nothing about this stage of Goat Rodeo Goods is balanced. It’s scrappy, imperfect, and chaotic on the best of days. Its Sunday night bank account reconciliations and 5am Monday morning runs to the veg market. It is attending parent meetings reeking of kimchi and sending yet another apology text to my friends who I never see. But it’s also real. It’s ours. And it’s growing—just not in neat rows this year.
Maybe it is a stretch, but I like to think we’re still rooted in the same values the garden gave us—seasonality, sustainability, respect for time and effort. We’re working with incredible small farms. We’re just channeling that into different soil right now: jars, spice blends, collaborations, stockists.
So here’s to tough choices, clear priorities, and trusting that the garden will wait for us when we can come back to it.
RECIPES
One of the things we’ve been working on in the background is pulling together a series of recipes for the extra pickle brine you are left with at the end of a jar of pickles. It is SO delicious and useful and we hate the idea of people throwing it out.
While the series will be mostly on Goat Rodeo Goods’ Instagram, we have started collecting our favourite brine recipes over on the website if you need inspiration. Oh and please enjoy our very high production quality intro video.
One of my favourites is pickle brine mayo. Mayonnaise is SO EASY to make. And this is a great way to use excess brine. Win. Win.
You’ll need:
A clean jar just slightly wider than your immersion blender (a standard pickle jar works perfectly)
Steps:
Add the ingredients to the jar in this order:
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mustard
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon pickle brine
150ml neutral oil (like sunflower, rapeseed or vegetable oil)
Let everything settle for 30 seconds. This helps the egg yolk stay at the bottom.
Insert your immersion blender all the way to the bottom of the jar. Make sure the blade is covering the egg yolk.
Start blending. Hold the blender still for about 10–15 seconds, until you see the mayonnaise start to emulsify at the bottom.
Slowly lift the blender. As thenPickle Brine Mayonnaise forms, slowly raise the blender through the rest of the mixture to incorporate the oil fully.
Blend until thick and creamy. It usually takes less than a minute.
Taste and adjust seasoning if needed. Add a splash more brine or lemon juice for extra tang.
Store in the fridge. Use within 4–5 days.
NEWNESS
We have a couple of new product launches coming this month as well. Launching on Wednesday, we have The Pickle Tickle Perfect Pickle Salt as an exclusive with Delli. It is a new pickle salt and, guys, it is SO BLOODY GOOD. Our OG pickle salt was developed because we had problems with a batch of our bread and butter pickles not sealing, but we’ve sorted that problem. However, when we make our Hell or High Water pickles, there are often off-cuts that can’t go through the machines for anything else.
While Miss Loretta the pig would love to help us with that problem, Lucy put her incredible culinary brain to it and we have THE BEST PICKLE SALT EVER TO EXIST*
As it is a Delli exclusive, you can only get it there. You need to sign up to be notified when it launches so you don’t miss out.
*no, we aren’t sure there is much competition on the market.
The other collab is still a secret, but how about a hint….
That is it for me for this month. I am off to not garden, possibly do laundry or maybe do nothing…we shall see.
Similarly, my mum used to say to me, "You can have it all, just not all at the same time." Wise words that help when frustration rears its head x