Happy Girl Kitchen
173 Central Ave., Pacific Grove (831) 373-4475, happygirlkitchen.com
If you were a preschooler in the 1980s, there’s a good chance you owned a green plastic carrying case shaped like the fictional Sweet Pickles bus driven by a friendly duck, or at least hummed along with the commercial for the educational product: “Smart moms know/ how kids’ minds grow/ upon Sweet Pickles.” Happy Girl Kitchen doesn’t have its own jingle, but it does make tasty pickles both sweet and sour, out of a whole lot of different organic vegetables from local farms. Smart moms know you can buy a gift case of HGK pickles. It comes with a jar each of bread and butter pickles, spicy carrots and pickled beets.