by Kersten Christianson

Pick a peck of Pamela’s pickles, touted as both sweet and sour. Upon first glance, the ingredients are quite ordinary as far as pickling goes: dill, mustard, garlic; not so unlike your grandma’s recipe cursive-scrawled across an old-school recipe card. They say the secret’s in the sauce. In this instance, jetsam in the brine: pink peppercorn, Guajillo chiles. The winter issue: lime-drenched cranberries. To each, the great-aunt’s add of rosebuds from a British Columbian garden, sunsetting the cornichon blush pink to remind us of blooming green spaces. They are crunch, they are concert, they are $38 a jar…and $92 to ship.

Kersten Christianson derives inspiration from wild, wanderings, and all that glitters and shines. Her newest poetry collection is The Ordering of Stars (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2026). Additionally, she is the poetry editor of quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. Kersten lives in Sitka, Alaska, where she eyeballs tides, shops Old Harbor Books, and hoards smooth ink pens. The arm of her writing hand is adorned with colorful tattoos from the Yukon, including the image of Zhùr, a 57,000-year-old wolf pup discovered in the permafrost near Dawson City, Yukon, placed among an array of flowers, birds, stars, and lyrics by Stevie Nicks.