We were invited by some sweet friends to partake of their abundant blackberry patch today. Wow! It's a very very good year for blackberries - the perfect weather for blooms and no late frost to hurt the buds. I couldn't believe the amount of berries on the vines, in all stages of maturity.The girls and I headed out into the thicket with our buckets, but they soon found other diversions once they realized how thorny blackberry vines can be. I continued to wade through the vines, which managed to grab my arse more than a drunken construction worker (note to self: wear heavy-duty jeans when picking blackberries).
In the end we came home with roughly four pounds of fresh, organic local blackberries. Wonderfully huge and sweet, blackberries are no doubt my most favorite berry (strawberries are a close second). And they way the vines are drooping with unripe fruit we'll probably be able to do at least one more round of picking (thank you, friends).
The absolutely crazy schedule this week doesn't allow for any canning, so this time we'll eat the fresh fruit as-is which, after many months of very limited fresh fruit intake, is an easy sacrifice to make. The blackberries should get us through to the early apple season, which we're all quite excited about.
What fruit would you most look forward to eating after a long hiatus?
--Rational Mama
Every year it is fresh peaches. Love them.
ReplyDeleteI'm still desperate for celery (note: not a fruit) but strawberries are my thing: in Pimm's (incipient alcoholism), in salad (something I discovered in Belgium: strawberries with salt on them - wow!), with apple in a crumble or pie (they go to a smear of sweet-sharp loveliness) or just out of the punnet.
ReplyDeleteLove the new look, BTW!
I love anything berry-ish - blackberries (brambles as my grandmother called them) and blueberries are favourites, and I don't eat cherries nearly as often as I'd like. That goes for most fruit nowadays, I guess, as my little boy tends to descend like a swarm of locusts whenever I restock our fruit bowl!
ReplyDeleteAn apple and blackberry crumble (served with lots of the obligatory hot custard) is a must as soon as autumn hits, around here. :-)