Today’s post is not about a restaurant, a wine, a meal, or a store. It’s about a season – berry season. On Saturday I drove out to visit some family in Hope, which entails driving through the beautiful, if often somewhat smelly, Fraser Valley. (It is agricultural, after all.) My mother wanted to stop at one of the local berry farms, something I was more than happy to do. When we opened the car doors we were almost overwhelmed by the scent of strawberries. I’d never smelled anything like it! It was really incredible. It also meant that we had lucked out. The place we stopped at had blueberries and raspberries (as did others), but unlike most others, still had some strawberries.
I was a little too inspired, buying a flat of blueberries, 2 large baskets of strawberries, and a small one of raspberries. The raspberries were for eating, but I had big plans for the others. Yesterday, while rocking out to Miss Kitin and The National I made a batch of strawberry-fig preserves, a batch of my tea-time strawberry preserves (secret recipe, excellent on scones), and a batch of spiced pickled blueberries (an excellent accompaniment to charcuterie, maybe I’ll go pick up some more of that wild boar terrine). Today I made blueberry-orange preserves (it was Belle and Sebastian and Of Montreal playing today). I’ll finish up with a blueberry pie this evening. I love making preserves, they are such a wonderful use of the fresh bounty of the season. And my friends and family love my making preserves too: They benefit from my efforts at Christmas.
What a wonderful time of year! Go out and take advantage of what is fresh wherever you are.
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