Thursday, July 3, 2008

It's black raspberry season!


Living in the country (or city) black raspberries are nearly everywhere for a short time. People pick until the freezer are full, they're sick of pie, have made enough jam, or just plain tired of looking at them. Terrible thing to be burned out on wild black raspberries. We have a friend that has gallon bags of them in the freezer that never get used. Yeh, yeh, it's a sin. kinda like finding more morels than you'll ever eat. Like that happens to me anymore!!! Anyway, it's the day before the big fireworks and I'm gearing up to go pick some berries again. I've made 3 black raspberry cream pies and 7 jars of freezer jam and still fired up about getting stuck by thorns, bitten by mosquitos and getting poison ivy. What am I thinking?!!! I'm thinking pie. In our neck of the woods there's Old Order Baptist and Menonite women that seem to excel in pie baking. While picking blueberries last year I was able to get a recipe in coversation on how they make thier berry cream pies. There's a layer of fruit and a sweet creamy layer that sinks to the bottom that has to be one of the best combinations ever. I've tweaked it slightly but it's really pure, simple and totally deserving of the hours of picking one can put in.