Suddenly they are everywhere — blueberries. June is about to be busting out all over, summer is almost here, and if you listen carefully you’ll hear the blueberries ripening. Little globules of vitamin-rich blue goodness! ’Tis the season to revel in local blueberries!
Local blueberries are ripe for the picking, as they say. We don’t have to worry about those tariffs, for the moment. Instead of waiting for imports from Mexico, Peru or Chile we can wander into a You-Pick-It blueberry farm, and spend some time in nature, plucking our own sweet breakfast jewels. Deelish.
Mr. Sanders starts each day in a healthy manner – unlike me – who still yearns for those good old days of cold pizza for breakfast. No, Mr. Sanders always sets a good example, and manfully tosses a handful of glistening blueberry goodness on top of his bowl of leaves and twigs every morning. Sometimes he just rinses them off in a wire strainer, and drops them into a bowl for easy munching. Or he mixes them with other berries and some yogurt. Sometimes he ladles a handful on top of a bowl of overnight oats and has a healthy, crunchy breakfast. Luke the omnivore wonder dog does not care for blueberries, strangely enough, so he won’t be staring up at you with a deep-throated yearning for the blueberries in your breakfast bowl. Not that you won’t feel his silent reproach for your dubious food choices. Now would be a good moment for you to fetch him a yummy dog treat. Dogs and Blueberries
I like my blueberries as a special component: in piping hot, just baked blueberry muffins, with melting Irish butter, and the Sunday papers. Or in blueberry pancakes, with warm blueberry bursts in each mouthful. Nigel Slater has a divine recipe for blueberry French toast:
Or, with a little planning, you can bake a breakfast cake. How perfect is cake for breakfast? A blueberry breakfast cake is the best way to start a day
Surely the ultimate blueberry moment is the first bite of blueberry pie. You might prefer your pie open-faced, lattice work, crumble, or with a second crust. It’s going to be a long summer, so try every permutation. Our friends at Food52 have done lots of research, and lots of baking. I rely on them to guide me through these treacherous blueberry pie waters: Food52 Blueberry Ideas
Father’s Day is in a couple of weeks (June 15th this year). You can start your celebration with warm, butter-dripping blueberry muffins at breakfast! Later on, how about a colorful salad? For a delightfully cool lunch salad, try pairing blueberries with cucumbers and some feta cheese. Blueberry Cucumber Salad
Later on we will be having cocktails, too, of course. John Derian is as stylish and clever as folks come, and this is his recipe for a Blueberry Smash. Deelightful!
Visit the farmers’ market of your choice to get lots of local blueberries and other produce:
Lockbriar Farm
10051 Worton Road, Chestertown, MD 21620
Redman Farms
8689 Bakers Lane, Chestertown, MD 21620
“Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.”
—Stephen Fry
Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.
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I have sweet memories and a photograph of my daughter, aged 5 and her brother, aged 3 picking blueberries on Westport Island, Me. I had given them little buckets and whistles to blow if they saw or heard a bear or a moose. I followed them from a distance and took the photo while hidden from their view. One for the buckets ,two for their blueberry stained lips! Their first grand adventure alone in the Maine woods!