The Pickle Episode | A Soothing Sleep Podcast for Overthinkers

Looking for a sleep podcast to fall asleep fast, reduce anxiety, and quiet an overactive mind? This calming episode of The Insomnia Project is designed for insomnia relief, stress reduction, and gentle nighttime unwinding through slow, soothing conversation.
Marco Timpano and Nidhi Khanna explore the world of pickles, pickling, and fermentation in a relaxed, low-stimulation discussion perfect for bedtime listening. From preserving vegetables to the curious idea of pickling wood, this episode turns an everyday topic into a cozy and unexpectedly calming experience.
The conversation gently drifts into the differences between pickling and fermenting, offering simple, thoughtful insights delivered in a soft, meandering style that helps ease racing thoughts and promote relaxation. With unhurried pacing and familiar, everyday themes, this relaxing podcast episode creates a peaceful environment ideal for sleep, stress relief, or quiet background listening.
Whether you’re searching for a sleep podcast for insomnia, calming background noise while you work, or a gentle way to unwind at the end of the day, The Insomnia Project offers a comforting, reliable escape.

​The Pickle Episode: Sept 21, 2016)


Welcome to the Insomnia Project podcast. We hope you will listen and sleep

Marco:  Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a conversation about the mundane. One thing that we can assure you is that our intentions is to have a conversation that will be less than fascinating so that you and the people you're listening with can just drift off. Thank you for joining us. We hope you will listen and sleep. We invite you to rate us, rate us on itunes and leave a comment if you're enjoying our podcast. So that when other people look and say, what is this Insomnia, uh, project podcast? They can read some reviews that say how it helps you relax, chill, and possibly sleep. I'm your host, Marco Timpano.

Nidhi:  And I'm your co host, Nidhi Khanna. Marco, the other day I was at, uh, like a comedy, uh, not a comedy club, but I was at an independent comedy show. It was like comics who were doing stand up, but they were trying out new material with the audience, and one of the prizes that they gave away was a huge jar of pickled vegetables. Okay, guess who won?

Marco:  Oh, you won.

Nidhi:  I did.

Marco:  What did you have to do to win?

Nidhi:  Uh, I answered a piece of trivia question. Uh, I forgot what the answer was.

Marco:  Fair.

Nidhi:  But I said something that sounded right, and I guess it was the right answer.

Marco:  More importantly, what kind of vegetables are in this giant pickle jar?

Nidhi:  There was everything, Marco.

Marco:  Really.

Nidhi:  There were things that I was like, you pickle that.

Marco:  Like what?

Nidhi:  You had your red pepper, which was unusual. You had your regular, you know, you had mushrooms.

Marco:  Yum.

Nidhi:  My favorite cauliflower, not my favorite carrots. I think there was a carrot in there. Um, yeah, it was good. Got like a lot of garlic in that pickled brine.

Marco:  Well, that sounds to me like what Italians call giartiniera, which is kind of like a pickling up a bunch of different garden vegetables.

Nidhi:  Why do people pickle?

Marco:  Oh, I mean, I think pickling is important because back in the day, you would be harvesting all these vegetables at the time of harvest, but you would want to eat them in months where you don't have the ability to harvest. So, for example, you would pickle. Let's say. Let's say you'd pickle cucumbers, because cucumbers are. When you plant cucumbers, the vine produces a lot of pickles. Sorry, it produces a lot of cucumbers. And whereas in the summer, you'll be eating cucumbers every day, you can get a little sick of cucumbers. But in the winter, there's no cucumbers to be had. So the method of preserving them would be to pickle them. And by pickling them would allow you to have pickles in this case, or cucumbers that have been pickled all year round.

Nidhi:  That sounds like an answer that would be correct.

Marco:  But it's not.

Nidhi:  I don't know.

Marco:  Okay. I thought you were gonna say, but it's not.

Nidhi:  No, I. But it sounds right.

Marco:  I don't know the sort of origins of pickling, but that's what I would guesstimate. Yeah. And, you know, that's where the pickled cucumber gets its name. Pickle. Have you ever had a new dill pickle?

Nidhi:  No. What is that?

Marco:  Oh, it's a great pickle. So it's. It's so, you know, a pickle has a crunch to it.

Nidhi:  Yes.

Marco:  Right. The new dill is a pickle that hasn't been pickled as strongly. So it's not as crunchy. It's a little bit more closer to a cucumber. So it's got a cucumber nest to it. It's softer to the bite, and it's a little bit more cucumbery.

Nidhi:  I prefer the crunchy pickles.

Marco:  But you haven't had the noodle, so.

Nidhi:  Correct.

Marco:  See, I thought. I thought I did, too. And I prefer a smaller pickle than the large pickle.

Marco:  You know what I mean?

Marco:  Um, you can get those really big kosher pickles, or you can get the little tiny dill pickles.

Nidhi:  And I used to really like the sweet pickles in the sweet brine.

Marco:  See, a new dill pickle to me, tastes sweeter as well.

Nidhi:  Okay. Do you know what a Kool Aid pickle is?

Marco:  A Kool Aid pickle? No, I don't.

Nidhi:  So Kool Aid pickles or, um, koolickles are in. Are like a Southern United States thing, apparently.

Marco:  Okay.

Nidhi:  Um. And they're created by soaking dill pickles in a mixture of Kool Aid and pickle brine.

Marco:  Oh, really? And what's the. I would love to try that. Is There a particular brand of Kool Aid or isn't Kool Aid the brand? Sorry, Is there a different. I should say, is there a particular flavor of Kool Aid?

Nidhi:  Oh, I don't know. But I would kind of think, like, the red Kool Aid would be good or the blue?

Marco:  The blue.


Marco M. says kimchi is fermented, so it's good for you

Like a blueberry. No, I would go. I would go with red. Or to be safe, like a lime or a lemon. Uh.

Nidhi:  Oh, yeah, okay. You could do that too.

Marco:  I would not want a grape flavored dill pickle. I don't like the flavor.

Nidhi:  Fair enough. Fair enough. Do you pickle?

Marco:  M. My mom.

Nidhi:  Really?

Marco:  Yeah. Uh, she would pickle. Like, as I said to you, the jardinera. Hm. Or the garden vegetables. She would pickle. I love pickled mushrooms in particular, Nidhi, because you can pickle some mushrooms that we don't grow here. So, like, I've had pickled porcinis, I've had pickled wild, um, mushrooms from different parts of Italy. And they're just delicious. They really are.

Nidhi:  How long does it actually take to pickle, do you think?

Marco:  No idea.

Nidhi:  Huh.

Marco:  I think the longer you pickle them better, the better it is. I don't know. I know that, um, if you can get unpasteurized pickled products, they're really good for you because they have a lot of, um, good gut bacteria in it. So kimchi. I think kimchi is, Is. No, kimchi is fermented. I don't know if it falls under pickled, but kimchi is fermented, right? Uh, Korean fermented cabbage.

Nidhi:  I love kimchi.

Marco:  So good for you. Just like horseradish. Would horseradish be considered? Uh, it's kind of one of those.

Nidhi:  It's fermented.

Marco:  I think it's definitely fermented. So if you can get an unpasteurized horseradish. No, not a horseradish. I'm sorry, I'm trying to say not horseradish. What is the stuff that you get on hot dogs?

Nidhi:  Yeah. Horseradish.

Marco:  No. Well, yes, you can put horseradish, but it's sauerkraut. I'm trying to say sauerkraut, and I'm saying horseradish. There's another example of me thinking one thing and saying the other and convincing people. But, um, if you can get unpasteurized sauerkraut, it's really good for your gut bacteria.

Nidhi:  So, Marco M. Fermenting is actually considered a pickling method.

Marco:  Okay, so there you go. So kimchi would be a style of pickling.

Nidhi:  It's just A very specific one. And, uh, I couldn't really tell you much more than that at first.

Marco:  So you've never pickled. It sounds like you're very new to pickling.

Nidhi:  I clearly, clearly. Um, no, I don't pickle. I'm not actually the biggest fan of pickled vegetables and things like that.

Marco:  What about olives?

Nidhi:  Love olives.

Marco:  Olives and a brine.

Nidhi:  Yeah, Well, I actually prefer them without the brine. Like, I know, like, I know, like, not in the big jar, but I like them like as just like that. Right, yes. Olives or whatever. I don't know. You know what I mean?

Marco:  Listen, I get it now.


Nidhi was talking about pickling a wall at her cottage

Speaking of pickling, this past weekend I was talking to you about this, and that's how we came up with, you know, we should talk about pickles and pickling. I pickled a wall, right?

Nidhi:  So you need to explain this to me because I still don't quite understand what that means.

Marco:  Okay, Nidhi, just sit back, relax, relax. I'm going to talk about pickling wood. So pickling wood as I do it or as I have done it, is a process by which you pickle wood that's on a wall in order for the wood to absorb the color of the pickling paint that you're going to use. So in this case, I was pickling a wall at my cottage. So what I discovered.

Nidhi:  So wait, does that mean, like, is that the equivalent of like, applying like a primer or stripping it or something?

Marco:  No, just sit back and relax. Because here's, here's. Here's the story, okay. Of my pickling wall. So at my cottage, uh, we have paneling on a lot of the walls. But what I noticed was behind this paneling, so it kind of looks like a basement. You know, those old basements that had paneling in it. When I pulled back one of the paneling, I noticed that there was tongue and groove wood that would cause the wall. So basically what it is is it's, um, slats of wood. So, you know, pieces of wood that on the top end would have what appears to be a little part that jets out. So the tongue and the bottom piece of the wood that would go on top of it would have a groove that that little tongue would fit into. So you could put wood on top of wood on top of wood and stack it as you would to form a wall. And you could stagger the wood so that you have different patterns, or you could put the wood on top of each other. Now, the next time you go into a, um, hardware type store, One of those big box, you know, home stores that provides different needs for your home. You'll notice if you go into the lumber section, the tongue and groove pine or cedar behind the paneling I found, which I didn't realize, old wallpaper from the 1930s.

Nidhi:  Oh, wow.

Marco:  That had kind of a greenish pattern of, uh, what looks like weeping willow type trees that are kind of blowing in the distance. So it just had this really soft and subtle, uh, look to it. But it didn't look like contemporary wallpaper. It looked like something that you would find, you know, 80 plus years ago.

Nidhi:  So here's a question for you. When you found or, uh, when you discovered the wallpaper, what was your first honest reaction? Was it more like, this is gross or this is kind of kitschy and cool?

Marco:  It was kind of like, this is really cool in a sort of look at what wallpaper must have looked like back in the day and what this place must have looked like. And just to see old. I don't know if it would be considered a textile, but certainly old print. Old wallpaper print. And to see it in a. In a state that's not a museum piece. So, you know, when you go to certain old homes and they recreate what it would have been like in the 1890s or the 1920s, and you're sort of a visitor in a museum and you see it, well, when you have that in front of you, it strikes you in a very interesting way. Now realize that as I pulled away the paneling, not all the wallpaper was pristine because it was really old. Old and kind of cracked.

Nidhi:  Right.

Marco:  But when we went to remove the wallpaper, we saved pieces of it so that we could then later pay homage to what was in the cottage previous. Right. So pretty cool. That was actually Amanda's idea, so she made me save it. And so at this point, I've got a wall of tongue and groove wood that's old. I don't know what kind of wood it could be, but I've got this wallpaper to contend with. And it's been on the walls for at least, let's say 50 years to be safe, but I would say closer to 70 years. And not having wallpaper remover and not knowing what it would do to this wallpaper that I had on the paneling, or sorry, rather, onto the tongue and groove wood, I figured, let me start with using just hot water. And so I wet the wallpaper with hot water and a sponge. And I could feel the glue or could smell the glue, and it didn't smell like contemporary glue. As odd as that sounds. It just had a different uh, viscosity or scent to it. It just felt old for lack of a better word. So I would wet it, reapply wet it and shoot. Sure enough, nitty, as I'm pulling away the wallpaper, I'm finding patches of other wallpaper underneath this wallpaper. This other wallpaper kind of looked like birch bark or it had sort of a birch barky kind of design. But when I looked closer at it, it had little yellow X's or what appeared to be X's or possibly little X like birds. So they made these yellow markings to, to resemble birds. So I think when you saw the whole wallpaper you would, you would get that impression. However, I didn't find a lot of the what that particular wallpaper. So I don't know if it was just a patch job that was done in certain places. Mhm. Because there was very little of that wallpaper.

Nidhi:  Right.

Marco:  So then I go about by taking the wallpaper down and I'm taking it down in patches and scrap, scraping it off. And I used a tool that is this sort of multi purpose tool that one uses with their painting accoutrements. So it helps you to clean a roller, it helps you to like take things out of a groove. It has a bit of a scraper on the end and I was very fortunate because I had seen it as I was leaving my home and I thought I should bring this with me. And in fact I was able to scrape off the wallpaper and because I had this scraping tool and it did not damage the wood because the wood on the bottom, you've got to be careful. You don't want to scratch it, scratch it or make grooves in it.

Nidhi:  How many hours in are you at this point?

Marco:  Well I didn't, I only did one wall. One wall and a pinch of its adjoining wall. So just a little tiny. It's not even a half wall, let's say it's in length. Okay. So maybe two feet, let's say. I, I don't know the exact number conversion of a meter and two feet into feet, but I'm sure somebody will say I'm off. But regardless, it wasn't very big, the secondary wall and I needed to do that secondary wall because that's where the pieces of wood kind of joined. And so if I didn't remove the paneling from that small little meter wall, I would have uh, it would be difficult for me to get into the corner. And that's why I did it

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Amanda helped me remove wallpaper from a piece of wood that had been damaged

Marco:  Uh,

Marco:  So I'm removing the wallpaper and actually it was time consuming, but it was actually more, um, interesting or more fun part of the process. So removed all the, uh, wallpaper off the wall and now we're gonna. Now I'm seeing wood. I'm seeing the tongue and groove wood. So I figured I better remove all the glue that might be stuck on there and little pieces of wallpaper that I didn't really notice. I take a damp, warm sponge and I just remove all that glue and all that debris that's left behind from wallpaper that's been scraped off because the big chunks you notice but there might be little tiny morsels that you'll find in corners or in little spots within the wall.

Nidhi:  Sure.

Marco:  So I do that and now it's time for me to sand the wall because in order. So when you pick a wood, it basically absorbs the paint and it allows you to see the grain of the wood without just being paint on wood. So there's a difference. It kind of gives you that look of wood that has been bleached. So that's a great way to look at it. In this case it's been pickled. So it's been. The process is slightly different than beached wood, but it has a sort of look of wood that has absorbed paint into the grain of the wood. Follow? Mhm. So I decided I should sand it because this is a wood that hasn't seen the light of day for maybe 40 years. Who knows when the panelling went up. And um, has had wallpaper on it for many years. And I needed the wood to sort of breathe. So I sort of sanded it down with a medium sandpaper on a sanding tool, which allowed me to get any of the stubborn pieces of wallpaper that may have remained or any residual glue that I may have missed.

Nidhi:  What was Amanda doing during all of this?

Marco:  She was lying back and reading. She had some scripts she had to read and she would often say to me, can I help you? And I was kind of like, no, let me do this. And to be quite honest with you, she was very helpful because I don't want it to be make to. For it to sound like she just lounged around. She ensured that I had a mask. So she went to the hardware store to get me a mask. Because when you're sanding right, it can get back all this dust. And she kind of, uh, wanted me always to have the mask on and my glasses.

Nidhi:  See, good for Amanda because, uh, I would have just sat back and lounged.

Marco:  Well, she was, she was, she was also, you know, when I would need refreshment or whatnot. And she also was like, why don't you have the windows open while you're standing?

Nidhi:  She's looking out for you.

Marco:  She was looking out for me for sure.

Nidhi:  I would have been at the beach just reading.

Marco:  Fair enough. And she, she would have helped. If the project was bigger, I could have used her help. But when you're dealing with one wall, it's almost, um, easier to, just easier just to do it yourself kind of thing. And when I was on the ladder, I would ask her for various things and she would bring them to me.

Nidhi:  Right.

Marco:  So.


Now it's time to condition the wood with the pickle wash

So at this point, I've sanded the wall, and now it's time to condition the wood. So I have this product. It's a clear product that I would paint on and leave for one to five minutes onto the wood that I think would help open the pores. I'm not exactly sure nitty what it did, but I know that it was the step that I needed to do prior to the pickling of the wood with the pickle wash. Uh, follow.

Nidhi:  Sure.

Marco:  So I took a paintbrush and I would paint the different strips of wood. And then I would let it sit for about, let's say, two minutes. I would then take a rag and I bought a bag of rags. So like, for, you know, five bucks, you get just a huge bag of rags. And I would wipe the excess, um, conditioning, not paint, but product agent off the wood, and thus it would be ready to pickle. So at this point, it's time for me to pickle because I've sent. I've stripped, I've removed the panel, I've stripped the wallpaper, I've conditioned the. I've sanded and I've conditioned the wood.

Nidhi:  So when you say it's now ready to be pickled, like, what is a pickling substance that you're using? Like, is it literally brine?

Marco:  No.

Nidhi:  Okay.

Marco:  No. No.

Marco:  But that's awesome if it was.

Marco:  No, it's a very thin, thin stain. So not quite a paint. It's more like a stain. It's white and it's watery, very watery. So you've got to stir it in the. And the product says to stir it throughout your work so that you don't just stir it once at the beginning because I guess it. The, um, coloring agent will settle to the bottom. And in fact, I would stir it throughout because I would notice I'd be like, it doesn't look as white or as milky as, um, does when I started. So I sort of used a paint, um, stick, and I swirled the paint. And then what I would do is I would take the paint or the. Or the pickling, the stain in this. In this case. And I would do it with the paintbrush on one strip of wood at a time. So as I would put it on nitty, I would take a rag and I would remove the stain off that piece of wood so that it would absorb but not look like it had been painted. Rather, it Would look like the wood had been stuck stained. And so I would remove anything. And you know, sometimes when you use a stain it will drip and whatnot or it, you'll put a little bit more on one side to the other. By using my rag and sort of uh, streaking it across the piece of wood, I would remove that. So I went and did the entire wall at which point it looked, did not look great. The first coat does not look great. It just looks, makes everything kind of look a little bit peachy or a little bit not, not so great. So hence I would do the second round. But I had to wait about two hours between the first round and the second round. Cuz you want it to sort of dry. Right. So at uh, that point why don't

Nidhi:  you just use a, like a, a different kind of stain?

Marco:  I think you could use paint and water it down. But I used a proper pickling agent so okay, I let it dry. I actually went back to the hardware, um, store to purchase more rags because I was going through them so quickly. Because you don't want to use a rag that's been saturated with the stain. You want to use a relatively dry rag. So I went and bought more rags, cut them into smaller strips and would use them. And once I use them once or twice I would throw them out because they would be saturated with, with the stain that I was removing or the pickling agent I was removing. So hence I do the second coat and now it's starting to look a little bit more white, a little bit more beachy, but still not where I wanted it to be. So at this point I'm doing the third coat and I'm doing the third coat and what I'm doing is I'm being meticulous with coloring in between, between the slats of wood. So where there would be a space, I'm um, coloring it in with paint or sorry, not with paint with the pickling stain and then nitty. The problem is that third coat looked great. But I was trying to go for the effect of shiplap which is really in which is this kind of look of, you know, Cape Cod or like a beachy kind of boat kind of look. Right, right. And I realized, or what Amanda said was because we don't see the line that separates a lot of the slats of wood, it doesn't have the ship lack effect. So remember that tool I was telling you about that I used to scrape the wallpaper off?

Nidhi:  Yeah.

Marco:  I used that same tool because it has a sharp kind of um, point to it, to kind of excavate all the paint that I got into those little crevices, uh, to make each individual board stand out. And that is the pickling of the wall.


Marco: I hope our listeners were able to listen and sleep on this episode

And I think that brings us to the end of the pickle episode.

Nidhi:  Marco, that was fascinating to say the least. I told you ways.

Marco:  I told you just to sit back and relax. So I hope our listeners were able to listen and sleep, or at the very least, listen and relax on this. The pickle episode.

Nidhi:  The pickle episode. We thank you as always. Please feel free to rate us on itunes. Um, we are happy to read your comments, send us your emails, tweet us at Listen and Sleep.

Marco:  Tell us about things that you've pickled or that you pickle or your experience in the pickling of wood. Process, or process, as we would say in Canada.

Nidhi:  Um, if you'd like a pickling episode part deux, this is how you're going to get it, my friends. As always, we are produced by drumcast Productions, and we were recording from, uh, Toronto, Canada. Thank you once again, and as always, we hope that you listen and sleep.