Dolly’s recipe calls for chopped green or purple cabbage and onion, grated carrot, diced red bell pepper, and minced dill pickle. If you don’t have a jar of pickles on hand, Dolly recommends using pickle relish. To make the salad, you simply have to toss all the vegetables in a bowl with one part pickle juice, one part white vinegar, and four parts mayonnaise, and season with a touch of granulated sugar, salt, and black pepper. It’s a formula so simple you could memorize it, and it can be made all in one bowl—you don’t even have to whisk the dressing together in a separate vessel.

The sharpness of the pickle juice and white vinegar cuts through the creaminess of the mayonnaise and prevents the slaw from being overly cloying. The brine also lends subtle notes of dill, coriander, and mustard—in other words, pickle spices—adding a flourish of seasoning that is often missing from coleslaw. Each bite of chopped pickle is a welcome surprise that I, a lover of relish and all things tangy, begin to look forward to with each new bite.