Also, if you look on the shelves of any of these Polish stores, you should also be able to find commercial versions of brined pickles. Just look out for ogórki kiszone or ogórki kwaszone, though many of the brands will have “pickles/cucumbers in brine” written on the jar. Plus you can tell by the hazy liquid that it’s fermented pickles. Unfortunately, I have no particular brands to recommend, as I always get my pickles either from the bulk/barrel section at Shop and Save, or from one of my mom’s friends.
There’s a joke great dirty joke in there somewhere but I won’t be the one to make it 
No kidding. Fried pickles are on the menu of every non-fast-food BBQ or burger joint or beer pub in my town, I think. With varying results of deliciousness.
I don’t live near any Eastern European groceries, as far as I know. So Claussen’s is our go-to; they’re crunchy and reasonably good. Mt. Olive is pretty awful; when they were being boycotted, I was a little disappointed I couldn’t join in, because I never bought their shitty pickles anyway.
We regularly make the Moosewood Cookbook’s pickled onions, something like this:
-Slice a bunch of red onions as into paper-thin rings.
-Pour a bunch of boiling water over them.
-Meanwhile mix up some vinegar, some salt, some brown sugar, and some peppercorns, and add some garlic if you want (although it’ll turn weird and purplish-blue).
-Dump the wilted onion rings into a jar of the brine.
-Eat within a few weeks.
They taste like some sort of wonderful fruit, and are phenomenal on sandwiches, in salads, and straight from the jar.