The Birth of Vini by Vinst
Cited by 71 users
Today we open Vini by Vinst, a place to read and to cook, made by the people who cook. I am starting it with my mom’s pickles.
5 days
VegetarianVeganGluten-freeDairy-free
By Assaf Glazer · Tested in the Vinst Kitchen
Published November 9, 2026
Introduction
At every family dinner, the first thing on our table is a plate of my mom’s pickles. We are a family that loves food, and there is usually something far more ambitious coming out of the kitchen behind them. The pickles are what everybody reaches for first. Twenty small cucumbers, four cloves of garlic, one small hot green pepper, half a bunch of dill, twenty grams of salt, fifty millilitres of vinegar, water. Nothing you do not already have. My mom is not a professional. She is a mom who cooked for her kids for years, and the pickles are the thing everybody asks her for. She owns a kitchen scale, but she has made these so many times that she does not need it: she pours the vinegar up to a line she drew in black marker on an 880 ml coffee jar, and that line is the measurement. For years, if you wanted the pickles, you had to stand next to her and watch. That is where this site starts.
Vini by Vinst was inspired by the recipes I almost lost
Most of us carry a few dishes like that: one from a friend who cooked something once and you never forgot it, one from somebody whose name you never wrote down. Mine sat in my phone, in my email, on paper, and in my head. A few I can no longer put back together, because the person who made them is not here to ask. So we set out to build a place where a recipe arrives whole and stays whole: the dish, the person it came from, and the small things that make it work. My mom’s pickles are Grandma Emma’s Dill Pickles, and they will carry her name here for as long as people cook them.
A recipe is a chain, and we keep the whole chain
Every dish starts somewhere, and then you make it yours: a little more garlic, a shorter brine, Tuesday instead of Sunday. We call that a Food Story — what inspired you, credited to whoever it came from, your own turn on it, and the passing on, so the next cook can do the same. The details travel with it. The marker line on the jar. Five days on the counter and not four. Those are the parts a cook knows by hand and rarely writes down, and they are usually the difference between the dish you remember and a version of it.
Your recipes are yours to keep
Everything you bring here stays yours. Nothing leaves Vinst, unless you take your recipes and data with you. Sharing is the other half, and it is the best part. Sharing is loving, it is how a recipe gets from one kitchen to another, and we have made it easy. You choose what you share, and who you share it with.
Start with the pickles
Fill a jar with small cucumbers. Add the garlic and the hot pepper, pour in the vinegar, dissolve the salt in boiling water and top the jar up, dill on top, close it and shake it well. Leave it on the counter about five days, until the water turns cloudy, then move it to the fridge. My mom skips sterilising the jar entirely — you will have eaten them long before anything else does. Cook them. Change them. Put your version up with her name still on it, and your own underneath. Our mission is to improve the food system through home cooking, and we start where every cook starts: with something good enough to pass on. I am the CEO of Vinst, and from today the editor of this site. Thanksgiving is at the end of the month, and a jar takes five days. Make your own, and then share your Food Story with us: what you changed, and who you made it for. That is how the next cook finds something worth making, and we would love to run some here.
Happy Thanksgiving, and happy cooking.
Assaf.
A few practical questions
Do I have to share what I cook? No. Keep your recipes to yourself, share them with your family, or put them out for everyone. That is your choice.
Is it free? Cooking with us is free, all the way through. The one thing you can purchase is a printed Cookbook of your own recipes, if you want one.
The Birth of Vini by Vinst
- Small cucumbers20 (enough to fill the jar)
- Garlic4 cloves
- Hot green pepper1 small
- Salt20 grams
- Vinegar50 milliliters
- Washed dillto taste
- A glass jar with a lid, having a capacity of 850-900 ml. Grandma uses a Jacobs coffee jar (880 ml)to taste
- Step 1: Optional (grandma never does it): curate the jar by filling a large pot with enough water to cover the jar, bring the water to boil, then carefully submerge the jar and lid in the boiling water for about 10 minutes. Remove them with clean tongs, and let them dry completely on a clean towel before use. This method eliminates bacteria and ensures the jar is prepared for safe fermentation. You’d probably finish the pickles before the bacteria will get any!
- Step 2: Fill the jar with small cucumbers.
- Step 3: Add garlic cloves and the hot, green pepper.
- Step 4: Pour in the vinegar. If using a Jacob’s Coffee, then pour directly to the lower level of the jar with the cucumbers inside (grandma doesn’t use a scale); see the lower level of the jar marked in black sharpie in the Image Gallery included in the online version of this Food Story (link in QR-code below).
- Step 5: Dissolve salt in 100 ml of boiling water, then add an equal amount of room temperature water. Pour in the water to the jar.
- Step 6: Place the dill on top and close the jar tightly. Fill with water up to 0.5 centimeters from the top and close the lid.
- Step 7: Shake the jar well.
- Step 8: After a few days (around 5 days in room temperature), when the water becomes cloudy, move the jar to the refrigerator.
FAQs
How long does it take for the pickles to be ready?
They take around 5 days at room temperature until the water turns cloudy, then move them to the refrigerator.
Do I need to sterilize the jar before making them?
No, sterilizing the jar is optional. You can submerge it in boiling water for 10 minutes if you prefer, but Grandma never does it.
How do I know when to put the jar in the fridge?
Move the jar to the refrigerator once the water becomes cloudy after about 5 days at room temperature.
Ask Vini by Vinst any question
Tweak with Vini
