2lbs of blackberries, 2 eggs, and a tomato

My haul from the garden today. I’m still surprised that blackberries - a fruit so associated with autumn back home – are ready for picking in August, its still the middle of summer here. (Although I have to admit the last few evenings have started to get a little chilly and made me think that ‘cardy’ season is not too far away.)

It was a lovely way to spend an hour in the garden today, out in the sunshine and unusually not bothered by the wasps which are a current feature of any outside activity at the moment; particularly if it involves fruit of any kind, even the fermented kind that comes in a glass. But today the wasps seemed too busy on the other side of the garden getting drunk on the over ripe remnants of the plum crop, while I wandered along the other hedge gathering a big bowl of sweet black fruit.

The unruly and overgrown hedges I complained about so bitterly when we moved into the house in March are now loaded with blackberries at a variety of stages of ripeness, as well as elderberries and rosehips which will ripen much later in the year. This is my second gathering of blackberries this week, I collected about a pound of small sweet ones midweek when I first noticed they were ripening and just couldn’t wait. The same day I turned the lot into a jar of fantastic tasting, if somewhat runny, blackberry jam. And so delicious was the jam I had to make a batch of scones to go with it!

How glad am I that we have been too busy with the house to attack these hedges and hack them into shape. There is so much unripe fruit still on the hedge I think we will be feasting from them for weeks. There were so many for picking today I didn’t worry that the low hanging fruit was being systematically removed by my ‘nutty dog’ with a penchant for fruit.

About the ‘nutty dog’… he’s a full grown male chocolate Labrador with the brain of a three month old puppy. And he is HUGE. He is the clumsiest, stupidest hound ever; he came to us as a puppy, all huge paws and huge character and he grew… and he grew… the rest of him grew to fill those paws and match the character. He is so full of boundless enthusiasm and friendliness that he ‘bounces’ everyone he meets. Passers by, visitors, casual callers and long time friends are all welcomed with the scary sight of 50kg’s of muscle and teeth bounding up, intent on licking your face. But he’s harmless, apart from accidentally knocking you flying, as he has often done to me! We have tried every conceivable form of humane discipline to break him of this habit but with no luck. His saving graces are that he doesn’t do it to children and after 10 minutes in your company he will be the most adoring, loyal and quiet dog ever… unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, many people don’t wait around for 10 minutes to find out!!

He does however have this amazing talent; he is the most efficient fruit picker I have ever come across. As with all Labrador’s he is driven by his stomach and he loves fruit. Any fruit. All fruit. He puckers up those great slobbery lips and with the most delicate pout he removes the juiciest fruits from any tree or bush. Plums, greengages, raspberries, gooseberries… his favourite trick at our last house was to follow me every evening to the garden to test the ripeness of the gooseberry bush and just when I was happy that they had reached the perfect balance of tart and sweet, would strip the bush before I could gather them the next day. And to add insult not a scratch on him from those sharp spiny branches.

And today as I return to the house my hands and arms scratched and stinging, my fingers a pin cushion of thorns and spikes and red from the juice, there he is completely unscathed but a belly full of blackberries.

I am particularly pleased with myself for my impromptu branch tackler that meant I was able to get to the very tallest branches. I put to good use a small roller handle with a long arm meant for painting behind radiators. I think this is probably the first time it’s been used – my life really is too short to be painting behind radiators!

This batch of blackberries is destined for jelly. I have always been fascinated by the idea of making gorgeous jewel coloured pots of fruit jellies, delicious with cheese and cold cuts and a good accompaniment I have discovered for duck, a local speciality. This region is famous for its duck, magret, confit, smoked, dried, in pate and sausage, foie gras and all the other ‘bits’ served in a variety of unusual and interesting ways.

Magret or breast is my favourite way to eat duck, and whilst not cheap it’s more reasonably priced here than in the UK, it’s locally produced on fairly small scale farms and one large breast serves two easily. Pan fried till the skin is crisp, the fat rendered and the outside browned and finished in the oven for 10 minutes till pink in the middle, then very importantly left to rest. While the duck is resting I reduce a glass of local red wine in the pan juices and add some rosemary; or mushrooms and finish with cream; or finely shredded leeks and a grind of black pepper. This week I tried adding some rosemary leaves and a tablespoon full of the blackberry jam I’d just made. The flavour was lovely but the whole blackberries from the jam were annoying leaving pips in the teeth. Thus I am now making pip-less blackberry jelly, to serve with cheese and cold cuts, or cold chicken pie but also to add to duck sauces, and fancy it would be a pretty good flavour whisked into gravy to accompany most game.