Amber's Blackberry-banana pie

The August that Amber and Jasmine were 3 years old, the blackberries were thick near our home on Bowen Island. One day, out of the blue, Amber said: "Let's make a blackberry-banana pie!" Now tell me, who could resist an invitation like that! Now we make them every year.

• Double crust pie or tart shells
• 3 - 4 cups blackberries
• 3 bananas, sliced
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp cornstarch
• egg white

Place banana slices on bottom of pie shell(s). Mix together the sugar and cornstarch, and sprinkle abut 1/3 of the mix, lightly over bananas. Heap blackberries on top of the bananas. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar mix. Brush edges with egg white. Place top crust on, sealing the edges. Slash air holes in the top. Bake at 425 for about 40 minutes.

Rumtopf Recipe

Let the Rumtopf begin!
Do you love summer fruits and berries? Miss them when they're gone? Looking for something new for homemade holiday gifts this year? Oh boy, have I got a recipe for you!

• Fruit (strawberries, raspberries, peaches, pears, etc)
• Brown sugar *
  
• Rum

Weigh the fruit, and add an equal weight of sugar (demerara)*. Mix in a bowl, and let sit for about an hour, to saturate the fruit with sugar. Place in the crock. Cover with rum, by more than an inch. Seal with plastic wrap, and cover. Place in a cool dark spot.

As each fruit comes into season, mix it first with half its weight in sugar*, then add to the crock with more rum, if needed, to cover. Stir occasionally. Leave in a cool dark place, at least a month, or until holiday season (which holiday, depends on you! Try for Hallowe'en at least!) Fruits may discolour, especially if using both light and dark fruits.

In the end, it's a powerful, dark, fabulous sauce or liqueur, over ice cream, cheesecake, or angel cake. The strained liquid is great mixed with ginger ale or (wow) champagne!

We're lucky, living near a ravine and a big wood, so we're going to work mostly with wild berries this year. We've started with salmon berries, in all shades of red, orange and yellow. Now, the huckleberries, and soon blackberries. All free for the picking, here in North and West Vancouver. We'll add some peaches or pears from farmers' markets. The combination provides a lovely mix, although I'm pretty sure the blackberries will dominate the colour.

Presented in a small glass jar, this will make a pretty holiday gift. Like the best gifts, it combines a little ingenuity, a little effort and very little expense. Happy Rumtopfing!

*weight of sugar = equal to weight of first fruit used, then
= half the weight of later fruits added.

wild and free at the folk fest

Free enterprise is something of an oxymoron. It's seldom free, for either the merchant or the buyer. But once in a while....

The Vancouver Folk Festival was on this weekend. It's been held for twenty-five or thirty years, and each year the market on the beach outside the gates has grown and grown. This year, from the look of it, there must have been 150-200 booths or tents, sprawling across beach and park, selling everything from saris to bikinis, bongs to bongos, antiques to jewellery. What a market!

In previous years, we've volunteered at the folk festival, and came to love the beach market. This year, we didn't volunteer, we didn't enter the (pricey) festival grounds at all, we just went for the marketplace.

What a lovely day. The sounds of great world music can often be heard from the festival grounds. But the real entertainment in the market is in the vibrant array of people passing by. And it was packed! Only at this one time of year, and at this one event, do I realize how the 60's 'hippy spirit' is alive and well, and living in Vancouver. There's no finer place to celebrate diversity and show off one's own unique style: the wilder the better. The talent! There's dread-locking, henna applications, drum-making, costumery, all well represented, by vendors and by strolling folks. Hula hoops and fairy skirts. Moroccan spice tea in a giant, round, gorgeous tent. Brilliant tie-dyes.

I do love diversity. Long live this anarchic ad hoc marketplace. May it never be organized. 'Humble yourself in the arms of the wild.'

The Grazing Garden

I'll never win a garden contest. A few years back, inanely proud of my yard, I hinted to a gardener friend that I might like to enter a garden show. Uh, no, she countered. it's about the weeds. Ouch. Okay, so I have a soft spot for these overlooked gems!

It's a hard-working garden, providing flowers, tea and salads, healing herbs, and a few vegetables. The veggie garden is right in the front yard, where the sun is. Right alongside the flowers. How very gemini. Only about 10X8, it's rare to find enough of any one vegetable to make a meal for a family of four.

Instead, it's become a favourite snacking place, or, as our Amber has dubbed it, the grazing garden. On the way to or from the front gate, it's fun to grab a few strawberries or snow peas. A mid-morning snack of arugula is my idea of a treat. Can't wait for the cherry tomatoes. It just doesn't get any fresher!

No, I guess we won't make it to the cover of any known gardening magazine. But it sure is a pleasure, all the same. I appreciate it every day.