Country Mice

Right before we drove away from San Francisco, Fred's aunt, Jenny-King, told us about all of the wild blackberries, ripe and ready to harvest, growing all around the family cabin in Inverness. And though I am a total weirdo about almost everything fruit-related, I do love a blackberry. Perhaps it's their tartness. Jenny-King then went on to tell us about her recipe for a blackberry crumble that she and her girls loved to make each year when the berries are in season and growing rampant around the Inverness house.

She even made us a little kit with all of the crumble elements mixed together in a Ziplock bag. Just add blackberries. And butter. A stick of it.

And we were off. Driving north, headed toward Tomales Bay.

This was the part I was waiting for, the part I was really the most excited about. The little house tucked away in Inverness, Tomales Bay, Point Reyes, all very magical to me. I remember when Fred took me up there the first time, a few months into dating each other. He made a point to tell me that though it was a very special place for him, it wasn't for everyone. It was rustic, he told me. There was no television, no internet, probably no phone service. There were spiders. But it was a house that was a part of him, his family - the paternal side, and so also a little bit of his father who passed away some time ago. It was filled with good memories; memories of fishing and grilling oysters and board games – and blackberries.

Though those reasons alone would have made me fall in love with the house and with Inverness, it would have most certainly happened without them. I'll tell you right now that I am no camper. At least, I don't think I am – it's been at least fifteen years since I've camped (back in my late teens/early twenties, Paz, Spencer, Sam and I went camping on the beaches of North Carolina every Summer). The Inverness house is in no way camping, but rustic, yes.

Perfectly, beautifully, serenely, romantically rustic. And very clearly filled with happy memories of family, children growing up, dogs, friends, love, and fun. My favorite room is the kitchen. Its windows look over the Tomales Bay and it's very bright. It is filled with odds and ends that family members and guests have left over the years, a mishmosh of different sized wine glasses, cast-iron, old sippy cups for small children, wonky knives and my personal favorite, a boom box that plays cassette tapes. There is a Motown tape that I listen to over and over and over again each time I visit. And it never gets old.

During the days we wander around and collect cheese from the Cowgirl Creamery, Brickmaiden Bread, salume, duck eggs and bacon from the local Marin Sun Farms butcher shop, and clams, mussels and oysters, oysters, oysters from the Tomales Bay Oyster Company and Hog Island Oysters (because one just can never have enough). Then we drive out to Point Reyes, walk out to the tip of the world to the lighthouse and stand and look out over an almost 360 view of water before hiking back up over three hundred steps to begin the strikingly scenic drive back to town. Back in the cabin, we pour some local wine, make a cheese board, grill oysters on the deck, and retire inside by the huge fireplace listening to that Motown tape until we fall asleep in each other's arms, a little drunk, a little full, and extraordinarily content, blissful, with Smokey Robinson crooning (a little roughly as a result of that over-played tape) in our ears.

And then we wake up with the sun coming up over the bay. And we do it all over again, save for maybe picking one of the precious (and delicious) local restaurants for our one meal out.

I mean, come on.

This last trip up, we took my dad and his girlfriend, Dale, with us. We were a little nervous that they wouldn't think it was as magical as we do. But one step, maybe two, in the house and they were sold. And so we shared with them our Inverness experience. To the T. Including the magnificent blackberry harvest.

After the lighthouse afternoon and our lunch of oysters on the bay, both Dad and Dale were spent. Nap time. So Fred and I went on a hike to forage for those wild blackberries. In hindsight, I A) packed horribly (as I always do) and B) wore the absolute, complete wrong outfit for the mission. Why did no one tell me about all the thorny parts?! So my cute, rolled up pants, sandals, and cable knit sweater that gets pulls in it super easily were, perhaps, not the best plan. Cest la vie. We still got ourselves a bounty. Fred practically had to drag me away, saying something about saving some blackberries for other people in the neighborhood, or some such thing. I couldn't stop myself. Perhaps because, at that point, after all of the thorn pricks on my hands, arms and ankles, and clearly destroyed sweater, I was in it to win it - I had given in to The Experience.

When we returned to the house the old folks were just coming out of their nap haze. So I opened a bottle of rosé, made up a cheese board and put on the Motown tape (which Dad quickly changed to a classical music radio station). We then made a simple presentation of fresh, steamed clams (pulled from the Tomales Bay that day) with drawn butter and a crusty bread followed by a pretty classic dish of sautéed mussels with white wine, cream and garlic, all with a huge chopped salad. Which pretty much knocked Dale out.

And three remained.

So, we built a fire, opened a bottle of local Pinot Noir (a glass of rum for Dad) and I got to that blackberry crumble.

In our 'kit' from Jenny-King there were about two cups of Trader Joe's Ginger, Almond and Cashew Granola cereal, about a half a cup of flour, maybe a quarter of a cup of sugar, a few dashes of powdered ginger, and I'm pretty sure that was about it. Oh, some cinnamon?

So I preheated the oven (which is all lit by propane and runs about fifty degrees hot) to about 350. Put all of the rinsed blackberries in a deep cast-iron pan with a little lemon zest, sprinkled the 'kit' over the top, sliced up a stick of butter and scattered that over the crumble along with some brown sugar and put in in the oven.

Jenny-King told us we would know it was done when all the blackberry juices bubbled up through the crumble and the top was slightly browned. And she was absolutely correct. This was about thirty or so minutes. While the crumble was cooling, Fred put a little heavy cream and some sugar in a bowl and got to whisking.

The night was cool, the windows were open, the fire was roaring, the wine glasses were full, and the classical music played on as the three of us sat by the hearth scraping clean our bowls of fresh, hot blackberry-that-we-foraged-ourselves-from-the-property crumble, topped with fresh whipped cream.

And so once again, twice in one trip, a Cosmic Muffin moment. There was no where else I could have possibly wanted to be. Talk about perfection.

And now, now I'm back in Los Angeles. And it is go time. One month to wrap things up: my life of thirteen years, my friends, my job, packing up my house, and hitting the road with Fred and our pups for the long way home. The extended drive across the country, through the cities, towns, communities, restaurants and kitchens of our country, and specifically the South, until we pull up to our new house in Richmond, Virginia.

Are you ready for us?

Jenny-King's Wild Blackberry Crumble

Serves 4-6

*This is all approximate as I was not given an actual recipe. But winging it can be fun!

4-5 cups fresh blackberries

2 cups of Trader Joe's Ginger, Almond and Cashew Granola cereal

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, sliced

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2 teaspoons powdered ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl combine granola, flour, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. 

In a large bowl combine berries, 1/2 cup sugar, lemon zest and toss to coat. Pour berry mixture into large cast-iron or casserole. Top with crumble topping and evenly distributed slices of butter.

Bake until top is golden and fruit is bubbly, about 35 minutes. Serve warm.

Top with whipped cream or ice cream.

Printable recipe.

One year ago: Cape Gooseberry Port Reduction Sauce

Two years ago: LQ@SK

Four years ago: Cheesy Creamed Corn with Cilantro

Consider the Waffle.

While ambling through a thrift store recently, I stumbled across a waffle iron touting itself as The Belgian Waffler. It gave me pause. Though I couldn't remember the last time I ordered a waffle from a menu, I knew for certain that, other than putting a frozen one into a toaster in or around the second grade, I had definitely had never made one. The colors and the font on the circa 1982 Belgian Waffler box reminded me, fondly, of Busch Gardens, an old-world European theme park back in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Old Country, as it was tagged, featured a number of 'hamlets' like Oktoberfest (Bavarian Germany), Killarney (Ireland), Heatherdowns (Scotland), Aquitaine (France) and Banbury Cross (England) to name a few, all with appropriately themed food, games and rides. For you Californians, if Solvang had skee ball and roller coasters, it would be a dead ringer for a hamlet in Busch Gardens.

And so, for a mere four dollars and ninety-nine cents, how could I not purchase this novelty kitchen tool that elicited so much nostalgia?

As I unpacked the day's treasures; two vintage pea green and ecru plates and a matching creamer made of genuine English china (must have been part of someone's wedding gift at some point), one ornate soup spoon, one floral Asian rice bowl and an old, wonky muted blue and white dish that I deemed a perfect pasta bowl, I stopped and stared at The Belgian Waffler. Once I got past another Busch Gardens flashback of taking the gondola lift from Banbury Cross to get to the Le Scoot Log Flume and then the steam train to get to Heatherdowns to ride the Loch Ness Monster, I contemplated the actual waffle iron and wondered:

What's the story with waffles? Who eats them? Who makes them at home? I think I miss Eggos. Should I go get some? I bet two of those would make great bread for a sandwich.

After some sleuthing I came across an article in Time magazine from November of 1999, covering the flooded Tennessee Kellogg plant that forced the company to ration its supplies for over six months. Apparently the shortage was called a “national calamity, further proof of global warming's reach, a sign of the apocalypse, evidence of a corporate conspiracy and a good opportunity to cash in.” (Witness the Katy, Texas, resident who posted a "rationed" box of Blueberry Eggos on eBay — "toaster not included.")

I guess we like our waffles.

I was not more than a little bit surprised to find the waffle's origin traced back to none other than ancient Greece. The original waffles were basically communion wafers called oublies made with grain flour and water, pressed between little irons embossed with Biblical scenes or allegorical designs.

From there, the waffle's journey is an interesting one. One of my personal favorite highlights of its trajectory involves a 16th century painting that not only shows waffles being cooked, but also features a man wearing three waffles strapped to his head, playing dice for waffles with a black-masked carnival-goer.

Detail from Pieter Bruegel's Het gevecht tussen Carnaval en Vasten - among the first known images of waffles.

In the 17^thcentury sugar was so prohibitively expensive that waffles were pretty much reserved for only the fancies. And, finally, around the 18^thcentury the word waffle first appeared in the English language and the recipe could be found in American, English, Dutch, Belgian, German and French versions. Rumor has it Thomas Jefferson even had waffle parties. Wild Man Jefferson, they must have called him.

By the early 20^thcentury ye olde waffle craftsmen were diminishing and the waffle became something people primarily made at home. This decline was accelerated by the invention of the first electric waffle maker (GE), waffle mixes by the likes of Aunt Jemima and Bisquick and, of course, that wacky trio of brothers, the Dosas, who provided us with our favorite frozen specialty, the Eggo waffle. Bringing us back to me standing in the thrift store, thinking about putting a waffle in the toaster oven in or around the second grade.

Upon my research, I was pretty excited to learn that some of the very earliest French waffle recipes, dating back to the late 14th century, were savory ones; “Beat some eggs in a bowl, season with salt and add wine. Toss in some flour, and mix. Then fill, little by little, two irons at a time with as much of the paste as a slice of cheese is large. Then close the iron and cook both sides. If the dough does not detach easily from the iron, coat it first with a piece of cloth that has been soaked in oil or grease.” Some other variations explain how cheese is to be placed in between two layers of batter, or grated and mixed in to the batter. Wine? Cheese? Sounds right up my alley.

For my fist experience with The Belgian Waffler, I was going to use one of the recipes on the back of the box. But then I thought to check in on my all-time favorite breakfast maker, Marion Cunningham, for her advice. She has never, ever done me wrong. Not when I need to make biscuits, or granola, or muffins, or breakfast breads, or pancakes, or even pancakes with fruit. Never.

Plus, my logic reminded me that in the eye of the frozen waffle storm sweeping this country, in or around when I was in the second grade, was also exactly when Marion Cunningham actually took the time to make her family waffles for breakfast. Even more precious, in her description above the recipe she goes so far as to explain that this is “ideal for spur-of-the-moment breakfast when you haven't time for yeast-risen waffles”. I mean, come on. Often mornings for me in or around the second grade involved my dad gulping exactly a cup and a half of coffee (half decaf, half caf) while watching The Today Show, and then standing by the front door, impatiently, with a banana in hand as I was grabbing my waffle out of the toaster, smearing butter on it, wrapping it up in a paper towel so I could catch a ride to school. But only as far as his work, mind you. I walked the rest of the way eating my breakfast. Yeast-risen waffles, yeah right, Marion.

So, yes, I went with Marion's classic waffle recipe but I added a little health. A little now. I added some chia seeds and some flax seeds.

And as Fred prepared macerated blackberries with fresh mint to go on top, I began to heat up The Belgian Waffler for its maiden (at least in this decade, I would imagine) waffle voyage.

Though it's clearly been a very, very long time since I've had a meal of waffles, and I rarely opt for the sweet breakfast over the savory, I enjoyed this one immensely. The waffles were steamy warm, crisped light brown on the exterior, and substantial but moist inside. And they were only as sweet as what you put on top of them. I went for heavy on the butter and light on the maple syrup. We had the good stuff a neighbor brought back from Vermont. I enjoyed the texture and also the look that the seeds added. Fred piled his high with the sweetened berries and mint, in addition to the syrup. We cleaned our plates and then bickered over the last square.

There will be more waffles. I will make the recipes on the back of the box. But mostly, I keep thinking about using two waffle squares as sandwich bread...

Chia & Flax Seed Waffles with Blackberries & Fresh Mint

Waffles

Makes about 8 waffles

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups whole milk, warmed slightly

1/3 cup vegetable shortening, melted

1/3 cup (2/3 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon chia seeds

1 tablespoon flax seeds

Put the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a mixing bowl and stir the mixture with a fork until blended.

In another bowl, beat the eggs well and stir in the milk. Combine with the flour mixture until mixed. Add the melted shortening and butter and beat until blended.

Blend in chia and flax seeds.

Pour about 3/4 cup batter into a very hot waffle iron. Bake the waffles until they are golden and crisp. Serve hot & top with macerated berries, butter & maple syrup. Or whatever you want.

Macerated Blackberries

2 cups fresh blackberries

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon shredded fresh mint

Combine blackberries, sugar, and mint. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Printable recipe.

One year ago: Eggs in a Basket with Maple Bacon, Fontina & Chives

Two years ago: Lamb Chops with Cumin, Cardamom & Lime

Three years ago: Potato Fennel Hash