A Perfect Day for Black Raspberries

With apologies to J.D. Salinger, who also lives in New Hampshire and is not likely to be reading this blog (although who knows?), I had to borrow from his "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" title from NINE STORIES. [While I've always liked that title, the story, which is set on a beach in Florida, is unsettling on many levels, and that day was far from perfect in the end.]

But today truly was a perfect day: blue skies, wafting white cotton ball clouds, not humid after a clearing storm last night. What better time than to find a New Hampshire lakeside idyll with the kids? My friend Linda told me about a special lake just a half hour from here with a private beach (small admission). So we left her farmstand (the wonderful Tenney Farm in Antrim, New Hampshire) at 1:30pm, got there at 2, and left at 5:15. Just enough time. As we approached, I smelled that warm smell of lake and pine that brings me back to my childhood when we swam at Lake Contoocook in Jaffrey.



The boys--my two and Linda's eldest grandson--played and swam in the shallow water, which stretches out for a long way before it is a concern, and built dams. We visited the old dance hall that is still on the premises.



A shadey pine grove just off the beach has picnic tables where we had a snack. A light breeze from the southwest kept things cool and the bugs away. But mostly the boys swam and I read recipes from ROSIE's BAKERY ALL-BUTTER FRESH CREAM SUGAR-PACKED NO-HOLDS-BARRED BAKING BOOK by Judy Rosenberg [Workman Publishing: 1991] from Rosie's Bakery in Massachusetts. Linda gave me an extra copy today and it was fun to talk about recipes and drool over the prospect of good baked goods to come (we decided it would be a fun fall-winter-spring project: a recipe a week and we'll compare notes, as she has a copy, too).


END OF AFTERNOON

Next time we will bring a picnic lunch and will each make something transportable from ROSIE's BAKING BOOK. [Linda also gave me a Victorian book about using time wisely that had belonged to her husband's step-grandmother, Elizabeth Tenney. We stopped to see the family plot in Antrim on the way home--and there she was, buried with her husband, and his first wife.] There was something transporting about our beach afternoon: not a great distance but far enough away (in an entirely different region of the state) to feel like a mini-vacation all its own.

We came home by 6:30 and my husband had not only barbecued chicken ready to eat but he had picked a quart of black raspberries--enough for a pie, or cobbler, or loads of muffins.


TEMPLE USES an OLD SHURFINE PEANUT BUTTER CAN THAT HIS FATHER ALSO USED FOR BERRY-PICKING

We also had leftover pasta salad and a squash casserole from last night (summer squash, yellow and zukes, from Tenney Farm, cut in ribbon strips and layered with yellow onion and shredded cheeses--I'll add fresh local tomatoes in season), minted iced tea (my father's old recipe using applemint from the garden), and watermelon--on our patio out back under the awning of our well-used, well-loved "Martha Stewart Patio Set" from K-Mart ("Yes, K-Mart"). A perfect summer supper.


SQUASH CASSEROLE SERVED from a FARM TABLE on the PATIO

Ah, July in New Hampshire.

Berry Season

This year a tangle of black raspberries, low bush blackberries, and raspberries has sprung up behind our compost bin. Thorny berries and blueberries are the first things to crop up on cleared land and are eventually overtaken by larger shrubs and trees in forest regeneration. These berries are at the edge of a stonewall in our neighbor's field that he mows. For some reason, this year, they have climbed up and spilled over our compost and are thick with berries.



My boys and I have been picking the black raspberries daily--some two cups a day, enough for muffins and some extras for the bunny rabbits who, like Beatrix Potter's Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter gobbled them right up for their supper. Soon there will be red raspberries and later in August, blackberries. But the red raspberries are the most plentiful.


THE PERFECT SUMMER POSTURE (and cookbook)

We turned them into muffins, using the Lemon Blueberry Muffin recipe from one of my favorite summer cookbooks, appropriately named THE SUMMER HOUSE COOKBOOK (a sumptuous feast of easy recipes and lovely images, published by Clarkson Potter).



We substituted black raspberries for blueberries. The muffins are lovely: light, a good crumb and rise, not too sweet, or moist or dry. You could also substitute orange rind for the lemon or nutmeg for the cinnamon.

The first poem in one of my favorite collections of poety, AMERICAN PRIMITIVE by Mary Oliver (which received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983), is about blackberry picking:

AUGUST

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

© Mary Oliver

This poem, like the others she writes, is about lifting the veil that surrounds us and having a deeper connection with our world and the natural realm. Berry picking, like weeding, has a zen quality: it is a time to think and reflect. "There is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells"--we can be in the moment as the rest of time and place and our past runs by and flickers around us. The gathering up, the sense of provision, even if on a bowl of cereal or perhaps in jam or something baked from the oven, is as gratifying as coming upon a cache of berry bushes in the woods.

When I was a child my favorite story that I'd ask my parents to tell me was about a bear finding blackberries in the woods. Another favorite book to this day, and one I have shared many times with each of my own children, is BLUEBERRIES for SAL by Robert McCloskey: a classic tale of parental separation and reuniting again amidst the backdrop of blueberry picking on a Maine hillside. ["Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk" went the berries in the pail.] At the farm, in summer, we had the blueberry bog and wild blackberries and raspberries here and there around the place. My uncle planted some cultivated berries in a field behind the barn that we enjoyed all season. Berries are luscious and colorful, each a gift and a gem: my favorite fruits of summer.

Fourth of July

FOURTH of JULY TRIFLE (an elaboration of Ina Garten's Raspberry Trifle with Orange Tea Bread)

I know it is now July 12 as I write this but I'm a bit behind on some blogging so please bear with me.

Our friends Rosemary and Jim (their pantries were in THE PANTRY, also) had a July 4th cookout which wasn't at all dampened by the rain due to their lovely porch setting and great hospitality. Their shingle style house was made for summer entertaining and it is so warm and welcoming I could move right in (and their kitchen!). The food was incredible, as always: grilled meats and fish, shish-kabobs, many different salads and vegetables and desserts. Everyone brought something, too.


PLATING THE SALMON


ROSEMARY's FRIEND LESLIE ARRANGED THE NAPKINS





Earlier in the day we made our neighbor (and faithful blog reader) Dot a plate of salmon, peas and a bit of trifle we'd set aside [Ina Garten's Raspberry Trifle with Orange Tea Bread from one of her BAREFOOT CONTESSA cookbooks--I just added blueberries as well].

I do not remember such a celebratory Fourth of July since we all used to gather together on the 4th at my grandparents' house in Akron, Ohio. Grandpa Sei was born on July 3 and my cousin Mary, his eldest grandchild, was born on July 4, almost 60 years apart. After neighborhood parades, we would play croquet on Grandpa's perfectly manicured lawn (he founded the Portage Path Croquet Club) while waiting for the steaks to cook (my father generally did the honors) and then we'd pile inside--six cousins, four parents, and two grandparents--to enjoy another occasion altogether. It was an elegant Victorian style picnic: semi-casual and served in the dining room. After dinner we had a "P-rade" in the living room, marching to rousing marches and birthday music (Grandpa Sei was a loyal member of the Class of 1921 at Princeton so P-rades were de rigeur).

I used to take those family gatherings for granted and they are long gone now: my grandma died in 1973, Grandpa in 1982, my uncle in 1986, my father in 2002, and my parents divorced in 1974. The house at 425 North Portage Path was sold in 1983 but I remember it, as clearly as if I were still there. My grandpa was patriotic to the core so it was fitting that he was born on the Fourth of July.

7-7-7

How could I not blog on this date? I hadn't really thought about it until the recent media blitz about this being the most sought after wedding date in history. I've always had luck with 7, but then again my Friday the 13ths always go extremely well.

But this day had an odd sort of circumference. The very first editor I ever worked with, Claire Whitcomb, used to be an editor at VICTORIA Magazine. I first pitched an article to her on the Gibson House Museum where I lived and worked in the mid-1980s, a Victorian house in Boston's Back Bay (and which recently celebrated their 50th anniversary as a house museum--even though it was built in 1860). I wrote several more articles for her and sort of put my writing on the sidelines while working in the museum field and in public relations. But I have a lot of gratitude to Claire for liking my first idea ever sent to a magazine and for nurturing my fledgling freelance career.

As it is with most freelance relationships, especially those as remote as New England to New York, I never met with her in person, until today. I still remember the clear sound of her voice when she called me the first time in 1989 to say that they loved the story of my having lived and worked in a Victorian house. Even better, they wanted me to write it. That summer, with my then 13 month old daughter Addie in tow, we stayed at the museum and orchestrated the photo shoot. On a hot summer day, Steve Gross and Sue Daley drove up in their old aqua blue Volvo, parked at the front door, and came to photograph the house for the magazine. They, too, walked into my life that day and here they are, 18 years later, as the principal photographers for THE PANTRY. [Somehow, I knew when I met Sue that day that we would always be connected in some way, and we have.]

In the spirit of coincidence (or "coinky dink" as Sue likes to call them) and reconnections, a robin reoccupied the nest on our porch today. I don't know if it is the same robin that was here a few weeks ago--or a sublet--but there she (or he, quite possibly) is, perched on her nest with another cache of eggs.

But I have strayed a bit off course. Last week Claire Whitcomb contacted me. She and her family would be in nearby Swanzey, where her branch of Whitcombs had lived, for a family gathering and could we get together on July 7? The especially circular thing about this story is that we live in the Whitcomb House in Hancock, a name ascribed for the two brothers, John and Henry, who built the house in 1813 for their two brides. Somehow, Claire is related to these Whitcombs. [A month or so ago, another Whitcomb family came through our town and wanted to see the house.]

My two sons, Henry and Eli, acting as hosts while their Dad is on a Civil War battlefield trip, were great about pulling out an album of the house that was made in the 1930s, showing everyone around, and wanting to lead everyone down to the cemetery to see the Whitcomb family plot.

We had a chance to visit, to talk about books and magazines and writing, about the news that VICTORIA is being revived from a several year dormancy (another odd circular thing). We sent them off at dusk on up Route 123 into the hills of southwestern New Hampshire to their next destination. In this era of e-mail and working from home, it is always good to meet with people in person with whom we have these far off connections. I hope it won't be another eighteen years until we meet again.

New Look ~ Clean Slate

Apologies for any visual realignments but I felt I needed a different look for this blog, especially one that would have more room for larger photographs. Oddly, the wallpaper background of the blog template is similar to that in our own pantries.

Of course, I realize, too late, that many additions that I made to my other blog are now gone (links etc.) so I will restore as much of that as I can soon. But many of those links are also at my website at www.catherinepond.com

And this is meant to be a BLOG and I need to do that more frequently. Right now I'm just upset that my squash plants have been sitting in the garden (in the same size as just after they germinated!) for a month it seems...and I was so excited about that new delivery of rotted compost! Last week I put on a feed of Cock-a-Doodle-Doo as a top dressing but the heavy layer of "moo doo" beneath it should be doing the trick. Meanwhile, my container plants (mostly flowers) are thriving, except for the sunflowers which have been eaten down (and out) by some critter.

Things have been busy with press interest in THE PANTRY book. Summer is here and that is always good.