Blackberries aplenty

My adorable five-year-old nephew Rowan knows some of the top blackberry picking spots on Vashon Island, which is a 15-minute ferry ride away from Seattle. Early one clear summer morning, we set out with his girlfriend Eloise-who is so cute I can hardly stand it-in her tiny colorful apron over her bright summer dress carrying a fairy tale basket. It promised to be a great little adventure.

Summer is one of my favorite times in the Pacific Northwest, there is something very magical about it; crisp and bright, lush and green with the great smells of summer: pine trees, freshly cut grass, the intoxicating fragrance of roses and ripe blackberries all around!

Everyone on the island picks blackberries and it’s a good thing that the Himalayan variety, which is considered an interloper, grows abundantly everywhere, dense and thorny, upstaging the wild blackberries. But when I can plop a luscious sweet tart berry in my mouth, do I really care if it is native?

Once we had our fill and our tongues couldn’t get any purpler, we picked lots more berries, squeezing through the bramble with squeals of pain-these thorny vines are vicious! With our fingers stained, snags in our clothes and a few less hair left behind on the vines, we proudly returned home with our booty. We had plenty to preserve deeply purplish-red jam and enough for the perfect summer dessert, a clafouti.

Clafouti is a French thing-lots of eggs, knob of butter, bit of milk, flour and sugar with hints of vanilla and lots of ripe berries. It puffs up nicely to a mouthwatering golden brown like a Dutch Baby tinged with brightly colored dots. The clafouti is wonderfully satisfying when still warm; the baked custard, sweet yet discreet, gives the blackberries all the glory they deserve. Most excellent with whipped cream, Rowan can attest to that.

Blackberry Clafouti

Inspired by a recipe from O, the Oprah Magazine
serves 8

2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled plus more for greasing

2 cups ripe blackberries
1/3 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 Tsp vanilla extract

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 Tsp salt

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Fill with blackberries. In a blender, combine rest of ingredients except confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Pour batter carefully over berries as not to move them too much and bake until puffed and golden, about 40 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve still warm with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Caffè corretto

When I was in Italy a few years ago, I discovered a quite wonderful drink: caffè corretto. It literally means a corrected coffee, and not only do I like how the words rolls of my tongue, I also like the taste. Caffè corretto is served in every cafe or bar in Italy, and easily prepared at home. I brew a pipping hot, strong espresso, add a quick pour of hard liquor (like grappa, rum or brandy) and a teaspoon of sugar. Downed quickly, it is the best pick-me-up on a lazy or rainy afternoon-it puts me right somehow and brings a smile to my face. And it takes less than a minute!

So when I returned from a recent trip to Nicaragua and to Paso Pacifico, I brought home darkly roasted, fragrant Nicaraguan coffee beans and a bottle of rich, sweet Flor de Caña rum. It occurred to me just then, that these are the perfect components for a caffè corretto, Nica style.

While savoring my little pick-me-up the other day, I remembered some amusing moments that I experienced in Nicaragua:

• Crossing the border from Costa Rica to Nicaragua on foot with my tiny rolling suitcase 
• Listening to teensy frogs in the middle of nowhere that sound like car horns and computer games
• Touching a fruit bat's pregnant belly
• Waking up to booming church bells and obnoxiously noisy parrots at 6 am in the colonial city of Granada
• Peering at pigs busily foraging on a playground in El Ostinal
• Looking into the most expressive face of spider monkey Roberto
• Observing hundreds of Halloween Crabs hastily crossing the street just in front of our car
• Watching the cutest Nicaraguan junior rangers reciting a poem to me in Spanish even though I don't speak a word of it

Cheese fondue, really?

Cheese fondue seems kind of old-fashioned these days, something that was all the rage in the seventies. As a child, I didn't like cheese but I always fancied watching my parents and their friends sitting around a pot of molten cheese, dipping crusty white bread with long, slender, colorful forks.

The other reason I was intrigued by cheese fondue was a very popular comic book: Asterix in Switzerland. I hoped that my parents would enforce the character's obnoxious practices when someone dropped a bread cube in the pot. According to the story, at first offense, there would be five strokes with a cane, 2nd time around, twenty whippings, and at the 3rd wrongdoing, the offender would be drowned in Lake Geneva with weights attached to their feet. That sounded like great entertainment. But this never happened, and we didn't even live close to Lake Geneva.

Nowadays, disliking cheese is no longer an issue, so when we ran into our friends Ellen and John, and, inexplicably, the conversation turned to cheese fondue, we made plans to get together and give it a try. I had a recipe, they had the fondue pot, so one warm evening (so wrong for cheese fondue) we got together.

My recipe is different from the typical cheese fondue, leaving out the Kirsch and using champagne, chives and Dijon mustard. It seems lighter, but that's only an illusion. We are talking a lot of cheese here. I liked standing by the stove stirring the cheese with a wooden spoon in a figure eight until it became soft, then creamy and finally perfectly smooth. Throughout the house we smelled the sweet, nutty and earthy aroma of melted cheese with the perfume of alcohol. 

The Swiss recommend drinking warm tea, but we chose a crisp white wine. We dipped chunks of crusty baguette into the fondue which had specks of chives floating on top, and enjoyed a simple salad on the side. It was just like my childhood memory, except that no one dropped a piece of bread.

Cheese Fondue

Adapted from a cookbook found a long time ago in a beach house in Del Mar
serves 4

1 pound finely grated Swiss Cheese and Gruyere Cheese (any combination works), mixed with 4 teaspoons of flour

1 large clove garlic

2 tablespoons butter

1–1 ½ cups dry champagne

¼ cup finely chopped chives

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Pinch of salt and pepper, pinch of nutmeg

Cut garlic in half and rub the inside of the fondue pot, discard. Melt butter and add the cheese together with the champagne. Stir constantly until mixture is smooth, adding more champagne if needed. Fold in Dijon mustard and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Sprinkle with chives and serve.

Mahjong with Rhubarb on the side

My friend Denise is known for her chocolate chip cookies, lemon cake and fruit crumbles. Last week she invited me to join her and some friends for dessert and a game of Mahjong.

When I walked into her home for my very first game of Mahjong, she had moved the old-fashioned table closer to the fireplace to get away from the spring chill. I admired her beautiful Mahjong vintage tiles, which are made from bone and have intricate symbols of dragons, flowers and winds. The tiles felt smooth and cool between my fingers. We spread them upside down and shuffled them running our hands over the tiles, and they made a soft clicking noise as they touched each other.

The rules of Mahjong were easy enough, similar to Rummy, and I sipped crisp champagne while I happily giggled my way through the game.

All along, we could smell the rhubarb crumble, the heavenly combination of fruit, butter, sugar and cinnamon. When Denise served it to us, still warm, on little white plates, we inhaled the whole thing. It was such a perfect combination of sweet and tart, that we quickly forgot all about Mahjong and enjoyed every last sugary morsel. Her three dogs lingered nearby, hoping we would drop some crumbs or let them lick the plates.

At home, I found another equally gratifying recipe for rhubarb in an old cookbook that once belonged to my German nanny. It made a very simple compote, transforming the rhubarb into a silky jumble, smelling faintly like raspberries, and I was happily surprised how easily it came together and how pretty it was in its pinkness.

Rhubarb Compote

The compote has the distinct tartness of the rhubarb which is so unique, but it also tastes sweet and refreshing with hints of vanilla and orange. It’s especially good served with angel food cake, ice cream or ricotta cheese. I strain the left-over liquid through a fine sieve and mix it with sparkling water for a luscious rhubarb soda.

Adapted from “Das neue grosse Kochbuch”, Berteslmann Publishing ca. 1963

Makes about 5 cups

1 scant lb rhubarb

2 cups water (500 ml)

7/8 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (200 ml)

5.25 oz sugar (150 g)

2 packages vanilla sugar (available in German grocery stores), can be substituted with 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp high quality vanilla extract or more to taste

Use skinny rosy stalks of rhubarb and remove any stringy bits from the ends. Cut the stalks in 2.5 inch long pieces and cut these lengthwise into thin slices. Bring the water with the orange juice and vanilla sugar, bean or extract to a simmer and add the rhubarb pieces. Cook for a couple of minutes or until the rhubarb softens and take it off the stove. Let cool completely and refrigerate. Serve chilled.

A 5 Minute Egg

It is something so very simple yet so delicious, a soft cooked egg. A very German breakfast food, it is traditionally served in an egg cup.


I gently simmer an egg for 5 minutes until the yolk is soft and golden and the white is firm, lovely with a sprinkle of sea salt and served with buttered toast.

I know the chickens who lay these eggs which come out in soft hues of green, blue and brown with the occasional dark brown in between.

Meyer Lemon Baby Cake

We only just planted one tiny Meyer lemon tree, and it already bears so much fruit: Lemon tree, very pretty! Now I am constantly looking for recipes that have lemon in it and ran across this one in my messy recipe box. I think I must have been holding on to it for a very long time, the newspaper clipping is yellowed and brittle. And then I baked these little yummy cakes and dusted them with powdered sugar. I bet a little whipped cream wouldn't hurt and neither would a cappuccino!


1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar (divided use)
2 eggs, separated
juice of one Meyer lemon (or any other lemon)
grated peel of lemon (if not organic, please wash very well in hot water)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
In large bowl, cream the butter; gradually adding 1/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks until thick and light in color, stir into creamed butter. Add dry ingredients alternately with lemon juice.
In another bowl (I know, lots of bowls) using clean beaters, whip egg whites until foamy, gradually adding the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, until soft peaks form. Gently fold egg whites and lemon peel into batter. Spoon into 8 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Soup with Yams, Apples and Cream

The following soup was meant to be served at my nephew's daycare. But he and all the other 2 year olds had one spoon full and spit out the rest. I chalk it up to undeveloped taste buds.

The soup was, however, enjoyed by me!

1 small onion

3 medium yams

1/2 apple

olive oil

curry powder

salt

vegetable broth

1 tbs cream or crème fraîche

Sauté onion very gently in olive oil until translucent. Add the cubed yams and apple and cook for a few more minutes. Sprinkle with a little curry powder and stir. Add enough broth to barely cover the vegetables and simmer until soft. Let cool for a few minutes and blend in blender or puree with a hand blender. Season with salt and add cream just before serving. Drizzle with olive or walnut oil.