foraging

On Sunday I had a fantastic afternoon foraging for wild blackberries right here in Lynton. There was nothing difficult about it (except reaching through nettles and spider webs) - blackberries cover almost every wall and line every road around this time of year. In the space of a couple hours I had more than enough of these tiny, sweet and delicious berries to make the crumble I had in mind, success!

There were so berries, and I was having such a great time that I wanted to continue picking all afternoon! In the end I chose to leave some for the other foragers and not be to piggish. Having only tasted blackberries from the supermarket before, I was happily surprised to find that these little berries are the perfect balance of sweet and tart and taste so much better than anything from the store. They are also a lot cuter - obviously very important!

 

As I was picking, countless great baking ideas came to me. I decided in the end that the crumble I planned from the start was the right thing to make, just because I wanted to keep things simple and let the taste of the blackberries be the main event. That's not to say that I won't bake up all those other goodies next weekend when I do it all over again, yippeeee!

 Washing the berries was interesting. As much as I like to get my hands dirty (I do) and enjoy a day spent exploring the forest, fields or any wilderness around me...I don't like bugs very much. I especially don't like touching the squirmy, slimy ones...that were crawling all over my little bag of berries. I bravely (and as gently as possible) removed all the little creatures and carefully washed my berries in preparation for the crumble!

I was so pleased with it in the end that I ate far, far too much. By the time it was finished baking the sun was down and my hope of getting a great photo was gone with it. Here is the best I could muster
 

There is still a little bit left that is calling to me from the kitchen right now........

In knitting news, I've been ever so focused on my latest design project. Last post I mentioned that I cast on one sleeve. Since then, I've knit up the second sleeve and worked through a good chunk of the body as well - record time!

I love knitting on something so simple, and I've had such a clear idea of what I want this sweater to be - everything is working up easily so far. I'm sure in saying that I've just put some massive curse on myself...here's hoping not!

I will leave you with a few pictures I grabbed on my blackberry walk. The hydrangeas are all blooming now, and some of the colours that are coming up just blow my mind! Hope you like them...