Monday, April 19, 2010

Wishful Thinking

When I was a kid, whenever I wished on a shooting star, I wished for one thing and one thing only: a barrel of strawberries. A wooden, curved, at least 5 foot tall BARREL of sweet, red-juice-dripping-down-your-chin-perfection strawberries. Looking back now, it seems crazy and also maybe the coolest wish ever, and I’m proud of my seven-year-old self for choosing berries over something as silly as a boyfriend or a pony (although I did ask Santa for a pony once, but at least my berry-wishes far outweighed my pony-wishes.)


To put it mildly, you could say I have a thing for berries. As an adult, that love has reached out and grabbed the entire berry family to include blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries… le sigh. Seriously. You can’t get more perfect than a warm, sun-ripened blackberry. You just can’t.

Unfortunately we’re not quite into full-frontal berry season assault yet, but for those weeks when you have something to celebrate (like the recent Desmond-centric LOST episode, when I made the pie) or something to be sad over, or something to miss or something to love, pie fits all of those needs. Pie accompanies those happy moments and pie also fills up those holes in the sad moments. Especially pies that remind you of summer, like this Double-Berry Pie. Strawberries and blackberries… crunchy topping…oh baby, oh baby.

From The Vagabond Table


Unfortunately, I forgot my camera while this pie baked at a friend’s house, and he was kind enough to take a few pics pre-baking of said pie for me on his iphone. I have no post-pie pictures, mostly because there wasn’t much post-pie to speak of. We were a bit too eager to let the pie cool down and set, so what I served resembled more of a berry-crumble with crunchy-topping rather than a pie, but that’s neither here nor there. The taste was yummy and so berry-y that it made me forget it wasn’t quite summer yet.

From The Vagabond Table


Finally...you know, baking pies is not only therapeutic, it also makes for a most excellent song by one most radical songstress… I now present to you Miss Patty Griffin for your listening pleasure. (Be sure to take a listen, I can’t believe I went this far into my adult life without having listened to her until only the last few months or so.) Hello musical soulmate!