For the love of berries, poppies, and sunshine
Issue No. 4
Tomorrow is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
Although autumn has always been my favorite season, I savor long summers days. I love when the light stays up to play late into the day and only begins to fall asleep around 9:15. And even when the sun sets below the horizon, its light lingers in the sky until close to 10.
One of my intentions this year is to eat as seasonally as I can. So far, this summer has presented many opportunities to eat fresh, local food — the highlight so far has been berries. For the past two weekends, my Love and I traveled to Beasley's Orchard to pick strawberries and raspberries from their achers and achers of fields. Last weekend we picked strawberries — plump, red juicy teardrops that almost didn’t look real. The rows were a little muddy but it was worth getting my feet dirty. I sat down and pulled back the deep green leaves to reveal clusters of plump berries. We picked three pounds of strawberries in total that were shared between family and ourselves in a wonderful strawberry shortcake.
We also picked raspberries this weekend. Beasley’s has rows and rows of green raspberry bushes that were perfect for wandering gently through. Unfortunately, there weren’t as many raspberries to be picked on as there were strawberries on the day we went. Most of the ripe ones were already picked, but there were many berries that we could see were in their developing stage, they just needed a bit more time. I learned that raspberries are black first, slowly turn white as they become riper, and then turn red at their peak when they are the sweetest. The ripest berries I found almost fell off the vine. The berries out in plan view were already picked, instead, we had to hunt for them, peeking under the leaves to find little branches of the hidden gems. We found a little less than half a pound of raspberries, not a full basket, but I was more than content.
My grandpa also gifted me a pint of mulberries this week. If you haven’t heard of mulberries, they look like small blackberries and have a tangy, sweet flavor to them. There are several varieties of mulberries, black, red, and white. The red varieties are wanted and are mostly found in eastern and southern United States, black is native to Europe, and white to Asia. The mulberries that my grandpa found were the black variety. Someone in their neighborhood must have planted a European mulberry bush and it spread over the years.
Mulberries are not mass-produced, so this happy little pint of berries is a sweet gift that I am savoring and enjoying as much as I can. I’ve already had them with a bit of yogurt and honey.
In celebration of the summer solstice tomorrow, I plan to cook dinner with all of the fresh produce I’ve collected from the farmers' markets, Field to Fork, and Beasley's. I will write a whole post about this soon, but I will let you in on one of the things I’m planning to cook — mulberry and tomato salad. The recipe comes from the cookbook Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules. As I was flipping through the Ukrainian cookbook to get some inspiration for the dinner, I found this lovely little recipe that looked SO good, and since it calls for the precious little berries that are somewhat of a rare commodity here in the states, I have to take advantage of it. Let me know if you have any good recipes or ways to savor + enjoy mulberries.
Watch this video Caleb made of when we went strawberry picking. The week we picked these, the berries were so perfect they didn’t look real. While the season for strawberries are winding down in Central Indiana (the heat expedites up the ripening process,) raspberries are in full swing if you are in the area and interested fresh berries.
Cucumber and Mint Water
Before wrapping up the fourth issue of this newsletter, I wanted to mention one more thing. I have unintentionally, ended up with a bunch of cucumbers this week. So to enjoy the green fruit and stay hydrated in the Midwestern heat wave, I’ve been making cucumber mint water. A refreshing, bright way to stay hydrated and get a good dose of antioxidants with delicious flavor. I made a huge batch of it and keep the pitcher in my fridge to pour from while I work and go about my day. It’s not much, but it is enough during the busy, hot days.
Ingredience
A cucumber, a small handful of mint leaves, and water.
Instructions
This water doesn’t actually beg for instructions. All you need to do is cut up your cucumbers into slices. You can judge how many cucumbers you want, but I use about half of a small cucumber for a 12 oz jar. Take your fresh mint leaves off the stem and throw them into the container with your cumber slices. If you want to remove some bitterness from the mint, boil a bit of water and then, over the kitchen sink, pour it over the mint leaves — then add them to the cucumbers. I used about 6-7 mint leaves. Fill the container with water, then cover and sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes or until chilled.
Pour a glass, sip, enjoy. Stay hydrated out there friends.
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