Well, put away the tank
tops and forget that I mentioned summer.
One day in the eighties and it’s back to wind, forties and rain. I had to dig through my closet and uproot the
scarves and hats again in the futile hope that I would not freeze during my
yearly trip in to Ely’s Blueberry Arts Festival. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I dug quite
deep enough. The real problem here is
the amount of fair food I bought to help me stay warm. I felt sorry for the ice cream venders as I
waited in line for my second funnel cake.
Ely has a population of roughly 3,500 people. So when 40,000 tourists sweep through its
narrow streets during the all-famous Blueberry Festival, our little town is—to say the least—swamped. And while the limited parallel
parking prompts me to scowl at random strangers, I cannot say that I disagree
with people’s enthusiasm for the festival.
Hundreds of white tents sprout seemingly overnight in Whiteside Park,
filled with local arts, imaginative jewelry, handcrafted furniture, northern
foods and—of course—an entire aisle dedicated to greasy food. Not only do a wide array of local artists
have the opportunity to display their work, tens of thousands of tourists get
to sample the unique flavor that is Ely…that is the blueberries, not the grease.
While I wholeheartedly support Ely and its endeavors towards
the arts, after three days of crowds, noise and heavy food, I am always more
than ready for things to get back to normal.
This year, I decided that the best ‘nightcap’ to the Blueberry Arts
Festival would be a trip to pick just that…blueberries—Ely style. After traumatizing my mother for twenty
minutes of back-country four-wheeling (my arms are bruised from her
death-grip), we made it to the little blue jackpot. Aptly named the ‘secret blueberry patch’, all
I had to do was flop down in the sun warmed grass and begin tossing handfuls of
berries into a container. Two hours
later and we had enough blueberries, June berries and raspberries to fill three
pies. Another half an hour and my mouth
is dyed purple and I feel like a blueberry myself.
The great
thing about picking berries is that they are best when squished into some kind
of dessert. All of the way back I was
wondering what this particular batch of berries wanted to be cooked up as. But since I let my mother drive home and my
thoughts were interrupted by flashes of imminent, fiery death, I didn’t really
have a chance to make up my mind until I was soaking the berries in our kitchen
sink. Blueberry cobbler? Blueberry crisp? Ice cream?
Milk shakes? Crepes? Pancakes?
Really…is there anything that we haven’t thought to put a blueberry
in? Probably not…Anyway, I finally
decided, “go big or go home!” So, two
blueberry-June berry-raspberry pies: coming up!
The
trick with any pie crust, as my mother has taught me, is to make sure the water
and butter are both chilled before adding them to the flour-salt-sugar
mixture. It’s the transition from cold
to hot that make a good crust perfectly flaky every time. So, following these instructions to the
letter, I quickly did the lattice work on top of our pies before tossing them
into the fridge to cool off while our oven got heated up. To kill some time, we even made a cinnamon
roll out of the extra dough. I have to
say…that is highly recommended.
The smell alone was
worth all of the hours picking. Our kitchen
was slowly filled with the warm aromas of berries, caramelizing sugar and
piecrust. Even with the cinnamon roll
sitting in front of me, it was all that I could do not to rip open that oven
door and tell the pie, “that’s long enough, chum!” It was food-torture at its finest. Or perhaps this blog is, because I have to say…it
was delicious. ;)
~K
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