Did I say I'd have *more* time to blog soon?

Oh, my, what a fool I can be sometimes.

It's funny, because I'm having quite a few local food adventures - mulberry pancakes and mulberry/peach buckle, nasturtiums and day lilies, and now the black-caps are out - but not enough clear-headed time to write. Well, it'll come eventually.

Anyway, I am all moved in at F's house. It's pretty wild over here. J has three children across the street, 8, 5, and 3, I think. F has two, 6 and 3. Now there are also my two, 6 and 2, and sometimes Matt's daughter, who's 8. That's a possibility of up to eight kids around at any given time - and believe me, it's happened once or twice.

So far in local eating together, we've had the peach/mulberry buckle one night, and the next day the kids snacked on blueberries, black-caps, and (not local) strawberries. The big challenge here is the sheer quantity of food we go through, with all the kids home for the summer and anywhere from four to eight of 'em around at any given time. We've been eating a lot of non-local stuff, and given the scale of eating over here, I'm pretty much expecting that to continue for as long as we're here. That's okay - you can only do what you can do, right?

Today I told myself that, rain or not, I was going out for some black-caps. There were a huge mess of them where we walk the kids through to send the oldest three to their summer rec program every day, and the kids all got to pickin' 'em. Even with all we ate on the spot, after a few minutes we had a good cup and a half or so, and they made up part of the afternoon's snack. I knew they were out there, getting overripe, and I couldn't stand it.

So today, while my daughter was at the rec program, I took my son out foraging. None of the black-caps in the woods were ripe yet; J and I think it's because they're more shaded than the other, super-ripe bushes we've spotted around. I went ahead and broke the don't-forage-at-the-roadside rule on this one; berries are too damned tasty not to.

I managed to get enough to make another buckle - black-cap this time. I also threw in some blueberries; one, exactly one of J's blueberry bushes is putting out ripe fruit. I probably didn't get any more than a half-cup off the thing, but I couldn't just leave them there. Into the dessert they go!


Double-Berry Buckle

Batter:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Filling:
2 1/2 cups black-caps (black raspberries)
1/2 cup blueberries
3/8 cup white sugar
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.) Grease a 9 inch square pan.

Blend batter ingredients in a large bowl. Spread into the prepared pan.

In a large bowl, combine filling ingredients. Pour over the batter in the pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Enjoy!