Every summer, I wage a mostly losing battle with Mom Nature. While the racoons seem to have moved on to other people’s trash bins, the beavers are very much at home, eating away the woods behind our house; the chipmunks stare me down when I plead with them to leave me just a tomato or two; the rabbits have demolished everything around the daisies (I guess they don’t fancy the daisies themselves); and the geese … don’t get me started on the geese. Yet somehow, for reasons I can’t fathom but am so grateful for, the birds graciously decided to share my raspberry bush with me.
We might have had more berries had I sent my husband out to do the picking, since he’s the only person I’ve ever met who picks berries and puts them in the bowl, instead of his mouth. But even with me practicing the one-for-me-one-for-the-bowl method of berrying, I sometimes gather enough fruit to actually use it. The last time I did, I pureed some of the raspberries and stirred them into a cold red pepper soup, topped a coconut-whipped cream cake with some and then, just before sliding a pan of Bittersweet Brownies into the oven, I scattered a bunch over the batter.
As much as I love fresh-from-the-bush berries, that’s how much I love baked berries. I can’t explain why, but with raspberries, much more so than with blueberries, for instance, baking seems to transform the fruit’s flavor. Whenever I have a baked raspberry, I have the sense that the fruit has been macerated in eau-de-vie. It’s as though the heat intensifies the berryness of the berry.