Cue the cukes Family-recipe garlic-dill pickles make cameo in locally-lensed holiday movie By: David Sanderson Posted: 2:00 AM CST Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025

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This article was published 15/11/2025 (316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lights. Camera. Pickles?

Christmas in Midnight Clear is a new made-for-television holiday film that was shot in and around Winnipeg this past summer.

The heartwarming feature, which began streaming Nov. 1 on the Great American Family network, tells the story of a corporate real-estate developer played by Canadian actor Alicia Dea Josipovic who arrives in the fictional town of Midnight Clear, with the intention of modernizing the struggling burg by converting character structures into faceless edifices. Along the way she meets Daniel (Ottawa’s Jon McLaren), a local pastor who — spoiler alert — ultimately convinces her the town’s heritage, particularly a historic church earmarked for demolition, is more important than her bottom line.

In addition to the Trappist Monastery Ruins in St. Norbert and Paroisse Saint-Jean-Baptiste in the Rural Municipality of Montcalm, the 88-minute flick also “stars” Cathy’s Pickles, a fledgling business selling preservative-free, Polish-style dill pickles.

Leanne Creran is the co-founder of Cathy’s Pickles, named for her mother who four years ago died from cancer. Creran has previously served as an extra on locally-shot productions. Through her connections, she learned the Christmas in Midnight Clear crew was in search of homemade goods for a scene depicting a church craft sale. She let them know about her venture, which she and her father Barrie, Cathy’s husband of 47 years, launched earlier this year.

“They got back to me almost right away and said they’d love to use our pickles, which was pretty exciting to hear,” Leanne says, seated next to her dad in a shopping-mall food court close to their respective homes in St. Vital.

The mother of two watched the movie the day it was released, making sure to pause the screen to snap a photo of the scene featuring their pickles.

“It’s a pretty cool thing to have happen for our family and, I guess, another chapter in the story of Cathy’s Pickles.”

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Cathy Creran (née Tomchuk) grew up in the North End, on Polson Avenue. Long before she was born, her maternal grandparents immigrated to Canada from Eastern Europe, settling on a farmstead near Beaconia. According to Leanne, that was where the “famous” Tomchuk-family recipe for bold-tasting garlic-dill pickles was first developed. That was also where Cathy, one of three siblings, was always an eager participant, come pickling season.

Barrie was raised on Atlantic Avenue, one street over from his future wife. Each of them attended St. John’s High School and while he knew Cathy to see her, they didn’t officially meet until she knocked him off his feet one afternoon — literally and figuratively — at a neighbourhood hockey rink.

“She opened the door just as I was leaving the ice, and because there was nowhere to go, I tripped and fell,” Barrie says with a smile. “Two of the guys I was playing hockey with knew her, and they introduced us in what would have been the winter of ’69. We dated for five years before getting married in 1974.”

After tying the knot, the newlyweds purchased a home on Atlantic Avenue, directly across the street from Barrie’s childhood abode. The house came with a backyard garden plot — almost every North End residence had one in the ’70s, Barrie points out — and before long, Cathy was growing her own vegetables, including cucumbers.

“When we first got married I was teaching music, accordion mostly, and wasn’t making a ton of money, so we really relied on the garden,” says Barrie, who moonlighted in a dance band called the Variety Pak that regularly performed at Royal Canadian legions on weekends.

“That didn’t stop even after I got a job with Manitoba Hydro, where I worked for 35 years. I swear, I don’t think there was ever a store-bought jar of pickles in our fridge, the entire time we were married.”

Leanne interjects, noting it wasn’t just their household that was partial to her mom’s dill pickles. One of her girlfriends specifically requested trays of them for her wedding social in 2011, plus Barrie’s co-workers were always dogging him to bring a jar or two to the office.

Cathy, who became a stay-at-home mom after the first of their three kids were born, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2016. Barrie had never been one for the kitchen — that was always his wife’s domain, he reports — but because Cathy’s ongoing treatments were affecting her physically, it eventually fell to him to prepare the majority of the meals. And, come fall, to take over the pickling duties.

“She would sit by my side, telling me what to do and walking me through everything, step by step. A lot of her recipes were written down — which helped a lot — and I eventually got the hang of things.”

Following Cathy’s death in February 2021, Barrie and Leanne agreed it was important they keep her memory alive in every way possible. Barrie was living in a condo by then, but that didn’t prevent them from rolling up their sleeves in the fall of 2021 and, using store-bought cucumbers, carrying on the tradition of Cathy’s pickles by producing a few dozen jars, which they happily handed out to friends and family that Christmas.

After being told repeatedly how delicious their pickles were, and how they should be selling them commercially, Leanne and Barrie started to investigate the possibility of developing a father-daughter business in honour of their loved one.

“At one time, I sold magnetic lashes, but that was my only previous experience with entrepreneurship,” says Leanne, a Canada Post employee.

“We were still kind of figuring things out, getting our food-handler’s licence and stuff like that, when the opportunity for the movie came along. I would say that’s what really gave us the confidence we needed to really give it a go.”

Donna Jarmuske met Cathy when the two of them were five-year-olds, living on the same block. Jarmuske says her life-long friend — Cathy was her maid of honour when she got married in 1974, and Jarmuske returned the favour later that summer — would be “tickled pink” to know her pickles are creating a bit of a stir.

“I distinctly remember going to Cathy and Barrie’s place in the early days, and seeing their kitchen full of cucumbers, with all the garlic and dill spread out on the counter,” Jarmuske says, chuckling at the memory.

“The smells were the best part and later, when the pickles were done and she was handing jars out, she never thought of accepting even a penny. It was all out of love.”

Jarmuske adds that while she was immensely proud to learn of Leanne and Barrie’s biz, it is with mixed emotions that she wishes them much success.

“Cathy would be loving this 100 per cent, but at the same time it’s hard because I miss her so much. My own daughter makes Cathy’s pickles. She’ll often call Barrie to ask, ‘OK, what do I do now?’ and he’s always happy to help her out.”

On Nov. 22, Cathy’s Pickles will make its official debut at a holiday craft show — a real one, this time — being staged at the Louis Riel Arts and Technology Centre located at 5 DeBourmont Ave. in Windsor Park.

There, Barrie and Leanne will be selling one-litre jars of dill pickles, along with 500-ml containers of sweet pickles and pickled beets.

“We’d eventually love to join that whole farmers’ market circuit, but for now, the plan is to take it slow and steady, till we figure out what demand is like,” Leanne says, mentioning that, thanks to her dad’s continuing progress in the kitchen, they may even expand their line down the road, to include more of her mom’s specialties.

“That’s right,” Barrie says, after his daughter encourages him to boast about his accomplishments.

“I’ve started making chicken soup using her noodle recipe and, last year, I made her perogies for the first time ever. They turned out pretty good, though there’s definitely more to them than pickles.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca