The Berry Bounty

Make-shift berry container full of the "fruits" of our labours.

Few things are more fun and tasty to me than growing something myself and devouring it. Case in point, my recent penchant for tomato and cheddar sandwiches, with tomatoes courtesy of my patio garden. Living in a city for most of my life, I’d almost forgotten that sometimes tasty things grow wild, waiting to be discovered by birds and bears.

The berries soak up the Sangria.

Imagine my enormous pleasure at discovering mother nature’s gift to us on a recent cottage weekend in eastern Manitoba. I’ve never seen so many wild blueberries and raspberries. It was a reminder of what these fruits used to look like before we engineered them. The blueberries were so tiny, they were hard to spot, and the raspberries were perfect and so delicate you needed your softest touch to capture them.

Wildberry pancakes on the vintage cottage stove.

Braving hungry mosquitos and nasty black flies, we collected many cupfuls over the weekend. I think the cottage road was picked clean before our departure. These tiny treats made for several Sangria adventures and a stack of berry pancakes that rapidly evaporated from the breakfast table.

When was the last time a walk in the woods produced a bounty for your table? I very much enjoyed my reminder that there’s nothing more “local” than sneaking berries straight from the forest floor.

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