Dessert

Cranberry-Blueberry Crisp

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Kid friendly baking! They may need help chopping those pesky cranberries.

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Cooking demands attention, patience, and, above all, a respect for the gifts of the earth. It is a form of worship, a way of giving thanks... ~Judith B. Jones~

I don’t think I’ve ever considered cranberries and blueberries together. (We’ll soon see I’ve lied.) There’s an excellent reason for that and it’s because the two don’t exactly show up or ripen during the same season. Blueberries are summer; cranberries are fall. Blueberries and strawberries? Of course. Blueberries and peaches? Sure. Cranberries with apples? Always. But blueberries and cranberries? It just doesn’t jive. I mean, we feel as if there’s a little wiggle room here because we’re still getting Fed Ex blueberries at the store in November when the royal red cranberries begin to show up. And we’ll continue to get some for a bit– but this doesn’t exactly happen in real time, does it? There are other ways to get such a combination, like freezing one kind berry until the other appears or drying a few cups or even canning a batch (as did my mom) and storing them until needed. Even so, I don’t remember mom, a fine baker, mixing and matching summer and fall fruits. Anyone? This November, though, perfectly gorgeous, firm and bloomed Peruvian blueberries seemed to be everywhere in Colorado Springs at a great price. I bought two big packs; best sous and husband Dave came home with another one. I meant to freeze some — my typical modus operandi when we’re flush with any berry–and somehow didn’t. Taking a little fridge inventory the other day, I realized it was bake something with blueberries or die. And…I wondered: Why not mix them up with cranberries? So I did. And a star was born. 😘 Sorry, Mother Nature. Politics (maybe global economy?) makes for odd bedfellows. Or is necessity truly the mother of invention?

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Plum and Almond Crostata: Windfall of Covid-Time

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While I might’ve, I’m not sure I would have made this a year ago.

Over the past few days, my eyes have been drawn to a number of accounts online and in hard copy that have zeroed in on some of the amazing benefits or windfalls of living life Covid-Style. Two keep coming to mind. In today’s Sunday NEW YORK TIMES on the front page, in an article by Ellen Barry entitled, “City Folks Flee the Virus, and the Bears Rejoice,” a man named Jonny Hawton is now working from home in Vermont instead of making a huge LA commute every day in California. He couldn’t imagine returning to the previous lifestyle where he only saw his baby daughter one hour a day. “If someone told me I would have to go back and do that tomorrow, I don’t know what I’d do.” Another woman — Juanita Giles — reviewing Misty Copeland’s new book, BUNHEADS, for NPR, provides interesting insights into now being with the kids at home all day. While she misses lots and fears her social skills are deteriorating, she does not miss one thing: after school activities. Running the roads to get to rehearsals and classes, changing clothes on the fly (think shoving sweaty little feet into ballet tights in the van), squeezing homework into a car ride (“I HATE MULTIPLICATION!”), and eating 5 slow cooker meals a week (all tasted the same–she obviously hadn’t cooked my slow cooker meals!!) weren’t her idea of a fun life. Did she know that before? Surely she did, but what to do? That was how things were. As a dancer, however, she did terribly miss dance and so did the kiddoes — enough so that the prima ballerina’s new book was an instant hit instigating leotards now quickly donned at home and endless pirouettes through the kitchen where non-slow cooker meals were now being cooked. Sometimes change, as hard as it is, is good.

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