In this newsletter:
Blueberry season
Where to pick fresh blueberries
How to store and keep blueberries
Blueberry recipes
And for the less food-focused…
Interesting reads, listens, and views
Ins and Outs of the Week
01. BLUEBERRY SEASON
Here in New England, the blueberry season runs longer than other berries, going from about April to mid-September. Blueberries are small and blue in color (hence the name) and share a family with cranberries and huckleberries. The taste is sweet, leaning tart if slightly underripe, and provides a wide variety of nutritional benefits. Maine specifically is the home to wild blueberries, which are smaller than conventional blueberries and pack an even heartier nutritional punch. As the name implies, wild blueberries are not grown in the conventional way of “regular” blueberries. Some fresh, wild blueberries may crop up at your local farmers’ markets during the summer, but more grocery stores now offer a frozen variety in their freezer section.
FUN FACT: Frozen fruit is frozen at its peak ripeness and nutrition, so there is no sacrifice going the frozen route.
02. WHERE TO PICK FRESH BLUEBERRIES
Massachusetts has many pick-your-own farms that provide both an experience and a delicious result. Some farms that currently have blueberries (as of 7/11/24):
Ward Berry Farm, Sharon, MA
Boston Hill Farm, North Andover, MA
Tougas Family Farm, Northborough, MA
A more comprehensive list of pick-your-own farms located North, West, and South of Boston can be found here.
Wild blueberry season is later, starting at the end of July. According to the Maine tourism website, there are currently two farms that offer pick-your-own wild blueberries: Perseverance Wild Blueberry Farm or Smith Ridge Farm. Smith Ridge Farm offers a mailing list, so you may be alerted to the start of blueberry season if you sign up. And just a head’s up, both farms are located deep in Maine (we’re talking 4+ hours from Boston with no traffic) so it may be best to plan a day trip out of Portland or Freeport.
03. HOW TO STORE BLUEBERRIES TO LAST
So you’ve gone to the farm, picked your own berries, and now you feel like a king with your pile of blue beauties. How do you maximize their life in the refrigerator?
Once home, spread out your blueberry haul onto baking sheets so that you can take stock of your treasures. Pick through and remove any stems, twigs, or flowers, as well as any split berries. The key is to negate any moisture, which creates a breeding ground for mold, and split berries can be a sneaky source of moisture. Don’t throw them out! Snack on them as-is or use them right away in a pie, cobbler, or sauce. But keep them separate from your whole berries to lengthen their shelf life.
After washing your berries, spread them out on paper towel-lined baking sheets for a few hours to dry. I would avoid leaving them in the direct sun or in particularly warm rooms. Make sure that the berries are totally and completely dry before refrigerating. Using paper towels again is key, and I read a great tip that recommends using paper towels between each layer of berries (if stacked in a deep container) to truly keep them as dry as possible.
If you over-picked, or are realizing after a week that you have more berries to get through than you know what to do with, freezing is your friend. If your space allows, freeze in a single layer (place the plastic bag full of berries on a baking sheet before freezing to achieve this.) Frozen berries should last a few months.
04. BLUEBERRY RECIPES
This summer I have been leaning into the “less is more” mentality when it comes to cooking. With so many fruits and vegetables in season (and therefore at their peak taste!) the best course of action is to let them shine on their own. So with that in mind, below are a few recipes I will be making this summer with my freshly picked blueberries:
Blueberry Sauce
2 cups blueberries
⅔ cup water
Sugar to taste (¼ cup will be less sweet, ⅓ cup will be more sweet, ½ cup will be very sweet)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Vanilla to taste
Combine blueberries, water, and sugar in a small saucepan and cook over medium-high heat. It will seem like there is not enough water, but trust the process! Cook until the sugar is dissolved and the blueberries begin to burst and break down.
Combine the cornstarch with ¼ cup water and stir to fully dissolve. Raise the heat to high and once the blueberry mixture is bubbling, slowly add the cornstarch slurry 1 teaspoon at a time. As the cornstarch cooks, it will expand and thicken. Continue adding the cornstarch slurry until you’ve reached your desired thickness. If it goes too thick, add a little water to thin it out.
Once you’ve reached your desired texture, remove from heat and add vanilla to taste. Serve warm or let cool completely then store in an air-tight container.
Uses: pour onto ice cream, pour onto a biscuit with ice cream, eat it straight out of the jar with a spoon, top pancakes or waffles, use a chocolate mold to make blueberry-filled chocolate truffles…
Blueberry Simple Syrup
A thinner, strained version of the blueberry sauce to make all of your blueberry beverage dreams come true.
1 cup blueberries
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until all of the sugar is dissolved and the blueberries are bursting. Remove from the heat and let sit until completely cooled. Strain through a fine mesh strainer and store in an airtight container. You can reserve the strained blueberries for any of the uses for the blueberry sauce (above) or use additional blueberries to make the blueberry sauce.
Uses: add to your coffee, lemonade, seltzer water, or cocktail
No-Churn Blueberry Swirl Ice Cream
1 pint heavy cream
1-14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
Blueberry sauce to taste, recipe above
Fresh or frozen blueberries, optional
Either in the bowl of standing mixer or with a handheld mixer, whip the heavy cream on medium speed until soft peaks form. (To test for soft peaks, remove the whisk from the heavy cream. The whipped cream on the whisk should fall over/not be able to hold its shape.)
While continuing to whip on medium-low speed, slowly add in the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla until combined and the texture is thick.
Scoop about half of the mixture into a freezer safe container, then use a spoon to evenly plop about half of the blueberry sauce in and swirl to your preference (the more you swirl, the less “swirl” will be in your end result, ironically.) Repeat the process with the rest of the mixture and blueberry sauce. Optionally, you can top or swirl in whole blueberries.
Cover with plastic wrap, and freeze for 8 hours or overnight before serving.
Blueberry Pie
I have a distinct memory of being a child and baking my own blueberry pie for the first time. I LOVED blueberry pie and baking so I thought I was having my very own Julia Child moment. But I’ve never been accused of being a patient person and the second the pie was out of the oven I was slicing into it, not realizing that the critical resting time was also setting time. I was shocked, appalled, betrayed, and outraged when I saw my beautiful blueberry filling ooze out of the pie crust and form a blueberry soup in the pie dish. But I learned my lesson that day that resting time is not optional when it comes to pie.
I don’t have my own blueberry pie recipe, but rather I use this one from Sally’s Baking recipes. She has lots of great tips for making a lattice pie crust and pie shields. Check it out!
05. INTERESTING READS, LISTENS, and VIEWS
I am a voracious reader. I have enjoyed reading since I was a child, and have been a library-card-carrier for as long as I can remember. Long-term subscribers may remember last summer when I listened to 14 different mystery-thriller audiobooks in the month of August and ranked them (that newsletter can be found here.) This was made possible by the Libby app. Libraries are such an underrated resource and I truly think that if we ever lose public libraries as a government institution that loss will, to me, signal the end of humanity.
Pivoting from doom and gloom, part of why I love libraries so much is because I cruise through books, and the library allows me neverending access to my drug of choice with zero payment (provided I return my books on-time and un-damaged.) In the same vein, Libby (the audiobook app that uses your library card) has afforded me the ability to borrow 78 (!) books in 2023 and 58 (!!) books so far in 2024. If I start a book and realize it’s not for me, I can simply send it back and get another one. Where can you get a better deal than that?
All of this to say, I read and listen to a lot of books, so each newsletter I’d like to highlight a few that made me think, made me laugh, or made me smile. I hope you consider using your library to explore them as well.
Fiction - Recipe for a Perfect Wife (physical book) - I borrowed this book on a whim after glancing at the cover at the library. I can’t tell you what particularly drew it to me, but I devoured it in 4 days. The chapters were short, which I enjoyed, and regularly switched between two different narrators. I thought the book was going to lean into a direction that it didn’t, and I can’t say that the plot was particularly eventful, so if those are criteria you seek this may not be the book for you. But reading it did inspire a series that I am currently working on for my social media that I plan to share soon (and I will link in the newsletter when I do.)
Nonfiction - The 12 Week Year and Do Nothing (both audiobooks) - I read these audiobooks back-to-back and I feel they have the same message, but are approaching it from different views. In both books, the overarching theme is that we take longer to do work than necessary because of societal expectations and perceptions of the importance of being busy. The 12 Week Year approaches this idea from a tactical viewpoint, with a blueprint of how to get more done in less time. The goal of this book is to provide a plan to follow in order to more efficiently get through tasks and projects to grow your business or improve your productivity, with a happy byproduct being more time for leisure. Do Nothing is more focused on the things outside of work that help us become more well rounded people, with the main goal being more time for leisure and a happy byproduct being working more efficiently. I appreciated the outline of how to plan 12 weeks at a time from The 12 Week Year.
Currently reading - Taste by Stanley Tucci
I am going to be upfront and transparent that I am not the person to go to if you’re looking for an opinion on the latest movie release or the newest episode of a tv show. For someone who is so chronically online, I am also comically out of touch when it comes to what’s what in the film and television worlds. I rarely watch tv or movies anymore, which is horrifying to say because it makes me sound SO PRETENTIOUS, but it’s true. Despite all of this, thanks to the neverending streaming services available, there is always something to watch.
After a recent perusal of the movies available on Hulu, I was delighted at the selection of movies from the early-00’s that I have not watched. I decided it was going to be a rom-com summer (because we’re branding everything now) and dive into some movies whose DVD covers are iconic to me from many nights browsing the local Blockbuster.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) - I feel like Diane Lane was a household name growing up but I also only know her from Under the Tuscan Sun, so the preview must have been featured in many of the other VHS and DVDs I watched during this time. I was delighted to see Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr Christina Yang (Sandra Oh) and Dr Addison Montgomery/Shepherd (Kate Walsh) as a lesbian couple (but also horrified that Addison ran out on Christina when she was very, very pregnant.) It made me long for the days when one could simply up and move to Europe, or anywhere, and there wasn’t a massive electronic paper trail following your every move. I also couldn’t believe that her “love interest” turned out to be Gilmore Girls’ Christopher Hayden (David Sutcliffe), who, fun fact, is now a life coach. Honorable mention to Raoul Bova aka the beautiful Marcello who was cast perfectly. 7/10.
Little Black Book (2004) - I wanted to like this because Brittany Murphy was such an icon but I couldn’t get into it. For me this movie represented the bad side of early-00’s movies. Sorry, Britt. 2/10 fell asleep and didn’t finish.
Currently watching - House of the Dragon on HBO
06. INS AND OUTS OF THE WEEK
INs -
Eating meals at the table with cloth napkins and without phones
Pick-your-own berries
Perusing the library for a book that intrigues you
Sandwiches
Slowing down and breathing deeply
Blueberry lattes
OUTs -
Forgetting to schedule down time while trying to fit everything into the remaining 7ish weeks of summer
Doing something for the photo rather than for the experience in and of itself (I’m using this as a personal compass as I move through the summer)
Spending 1 million dollars on pre cut fruit in plastic at the grocery store
Soup (she will shine again come October)
Sneakers at the beach (these were never in but need reminding)
Drudging through a book/movie/tv show just to say you finished it. If you don’t like it, don’t spend time on it!