The Blackberries and I

Over the past few weeks, my relationship with blackberries has become very complex. I swing wildly from outright hatred to fierce desire. How should I feel about this prickly, stubborn, crazy delicious menace?

All along the back of our property is a gigantic swath of blackberry bushes. They are not even on our land and yet they encroach rapidly. Shanti hacks at them with a crazed fervor every few months, but they only return stronger to strangle our bushes and creep along our lawn. I spent an hour digging them from under a lilac the other day. The roots were so old and deep that there was no way I could dig them all up. Unfortunately digging them up is the only way to eradicate them....well that and evil poison.

At least once a day I silently curse them. Until 2 weeks ago.
I was running down the road to put some mail into a neighbours post box when I realized that the bushes lining the road were laden with plump, purpely black berries. I popped one in my mouth and then ran like a crazy lady back to the house to call the family to pick.

I have just spent 20 minutes harvesting along the back of the house. The picking itself is painful and hard...and yet the reward is so sweet. The berries burst in your mouth. They have quickly become my most favorite berry. I am baking pie and crumbles and sprinkling them in yogurt. I am having anxiety that I can not reach all of them and that many are going to waste. I am covered in scratches and itchy spores. Today when I went running, I actually had to stop mid stride to eat some beside the road...the temptation was too great.

So do I love this scourge of the island? If the blackberries suddenly all died, would I rejoice that a noxious weed had been vanquished, or would I shed a silent tear that the late months of summer on Vashon would no longer hold such sweet sweet morsels scattered along the roads for anyone to take?

Buying local

One of the things I am really appreciating about island life is the ease at which I can buy locally produced goods.
Today my neighbor clued me into a guy who makes bread in a wood fired oven and sells it at the Thriftway. It is called Bill's Bread, and when I grabbed it off the shelf it was warm. Apparently he bakes it in a wood fired, French style, outdoor oven. I cut up the loaf for dinner and it was gone in 10 minutes. It had a beautiful chewy crust and a very soft, spongy interior. The flavors were complex and nutty. At the Thriftway you can also find local meat, local cheese, Vashon coffee and hand made soaps. At the moment the veggie starts lined up outside the front doors have been sprouted down the road.
My eldest son gets to eat locally whenever he has school lunch. The lunch program here is outstanding, a dollar more than you pay in the city, but the food is fantastic and much of it is grown on the island. It is always a far superior lunch to one I could scrounge up for him before the caffeine has kicked in.

The Farmer's Market has opened for the season and I see farm stands cropping up all over the place. Soon our chickens will be big enough to lay and then maybe I'll be putting an honor box beside my mail box. I look forward to being able to contribute to this local food life.
I guess I should try and find these foodie folk. They are all over the island and are a big reason life here is so rich and appealing. For now I'll chat over the fence with my neighbor and hope he gives me more delicious tips. Did I mention that he has a vineyard...and a while back he gave us a bottle of his wine.

10 things I love about Island life

1. Leaving my car doors unlocked.
2. Looking out my kitchen window, and seeing an orchard, a vineyard and the Puget Sound.
3. Getting plants delivered along with my mail from my friendly Postman.
4. Rubber boots becoming completely acceptable footwear...anywhere.
5. Buying fresh eggs from Ferdie's Preschool teacher...(thanks Andrea!)
6. Getting my handwritten water bill.
7. Walking on the beach in the rain.
8. The General Store in Burton, which is exactly how a general store on an island should be. It even has the friends of the old lady who runs it sitting on a couch behind the cash register.
9. Birds everywhere...I am going through a feeder full of seed a day.
10. The most awesome school lunch program in the USA (I'd be willing to bet money on it anyways)

Frosting a train

Another Birthday for a small boy and this time I decided to tackle the dreaded train. I vaguely remember my Mum telling me never to attempt the train...but a girl never listens to her mother. Mum was right. It was a frosting nightmare. I had to pull out my whole bag of tricks; a crumb coat, a chill in the freezer, the palette knife in hot water, disguising mess ups with candy, the list goes on. The end result was great, but it took me many hours. Never mind, the look on Raf's face was worth all the effort. I like to think my cakes are edible Birthday cards to my kids. I am sure when they are adults they will remember every mistake I made as a parent, but I also hope that they will remember those cakes and how much love I frosted onto them.

Already hosed it....

So I am supposed to post every week. That good intention lasted exactly one week. See how bad I am at New Years resolutions. I am going to tell myself that my post last week was actually my decision on the name for my blog, a weighty task indeed. I wanted to call it something that didn't lock me into rants about baked goods and kids, so I chose 'Isthmus". I live very close to an isthmus; a narrow strip of land, bordered on both sides by water, connecting two larger bodies of land. I get a thrill every time I drive over it, seeing one harbor and then the other...almost touching. We went for a walk this past weekend, down to the beach at low tide.  In the old days, this was the only time Vashon and Maury were joined and you had to wait until then to cross by foot, but then the isthmus was built and the two became more like one. 

My boys ran like wild things. The littlest one could scarcely tear himself away from the rocks and the water and all the things crawling around on the shore. It made me so happy that I have brought them here to grow up. We are lucky indeed.

New Year's Resolution

I make resolutions every year. I never keep them.

My most common one is to floss every day. I didn't even bother to make that one this year. However I did make one that I am actually going to attempt to keep.

I resolved to post something on my blog once a week. Crazy talk I know.

So here I am . I have moved to an old farmhouse, on an acre of land, on an island in Puget Sound. My kitchen is from way back in the 70's and lacks a dishwasher and anything that even resembles a decent stove. But I love it here, and am looking forward to a year in which I try out lots of new adventures. As I type this, the chicken coop is under construction, the compost pile is growing, and hubby is reading up on vegetable gardens.

I am still baking as usual.

For New Years I made monkey bread. It is a pull apart sticky bun loaf that is delicious and looks way more complicated than it actually is. I used the recipe from the Cook's Illustrated Baking Book. I loved the fact that I could put it in the fridge, and let it rise the next morning.

So let's see what I can pull out of my oven this year, assuming I don't attack it with a sledge hammer out of frustration that is.

latest Birthday cake

My oldest son requested an ice cream cake for his 8th Birthday. He gave me free reign on how to decorate it, so I went with a spy theme. With a little help, I made a bunch of fondant spy tools that I was able to place on top at the last moment. Ice cream cakes are pretty easy really. I baked a plain vanilla cake, split it in half and filled the middle with ice cream. Old School Frozen Custard was having strawberry as the flavor of the day, so I had them do a Neapolitan style....3 stripes, 13 scoops in all. I frosted the cake with a very simple whipped cream icing, with a bunch of powdered sugar in it to stabilize it. I was pretty pleased with the result. I reminded me how fun and easy it is to work with fondant. It really is edible play dough.

All things crazy

It has been a busy summer. Hubby has worked non stop, we are in the process of trying to buy a house and the daily life of 3 small boys is a chaotic ride. Birthday season is now upon us, so I will hopefully update with cake photos very soon. My son has requested an ice cream cake. I am down with his....nothing better than ice cream and cake in one glorious creation. I have talked with the folks at Old School Frozen Custard, and they are going to fill up my cake pan with their seriously awesome ice cream. I'll have a layer of cake already in there, then I'll turn the whole thing out and frost it with a powered sugar infused whipped cream.

Isaac is very into spying right now, so I am going to attempt some spy like stuff with fondant. This could be tragic. Ice cream cakes don't lend themselves to intricate decoration as they melt, thus I must have stuff that I can just throw on the top. Results to follow!

Best Birthday cake ever.

When I was a kid...this was the Birthday cake I most often requested.

It is a classic. I made it for my eldest son's first Birthday as well.

If you have kids, then you simply must own "The Australian Women's weekly Birthday Cake Books". My boys pour over them on rainy days. My brothers and I can tell you every cake we had from them, and Birthday parties we went to that featured a Women's Weekly creation. It is hard to find the original from the 70's but well worth the search. I'd lend you mine, but it is too treasured to part with for even a day.

Best pound cake ever. Thanks Elvis!

I did a ton of cooking this past weekend, and one thing I made for the second time was Elvis's favorite pound cake. I got the recipe from Gourmet- back in the day when it was still around. I am a lover of pound cake...so simple and so comforting. This one is the King of them all (bad pun I know).

Take the time to sift the flour 3 times. It is important. The cake is a very fine, dense crumb, quite sturdy and spongy. I like to serve it with strawberries or even a yummy ice cream. It also has a yummy 'crust" that forms on the top of the cake that is almost chewy. Maybe Elvis was onto something here. Watch me if I start to fry up PB&J sandwiches though.