So we’re starting with an off week, what do you do. I’m in Idaho, on lake Coeur d’Alene, lamenting the fact that it’s been a cold spring. Every year I come up here for family vacation, filled with boating and card games. Every year we walk up the hill to an abandoned farm-house to pick fresh, ripe tart cherries off a half-dozen abandoned cherry trees. And every year is filled with the best cherry pies, cobblers, and tarts that we can imagine. This is where I first came to respect the pastry’s superiority over the humble cake, first played around with what has become Blackbird’s trademark pie crust.
Back in Kansas our fruit season is far ahead of the Idaho schedule; apricot and cherries have come and gone, peaches are just getting into their full swing. I’m salivating around plans to pick blackberries at our local orchard, and making a blackberry-peach cobbler with fruit that has never seen the inside of a refrigerator.
It takes more energy and more time to find fruit from local suppliers. We also have to be willing to work around the seasons, and eat things in their proper time. Strawberries shipped from California are never as juicy as berries eaten directly out of the field at the Lawson Brother’s farm; asparagus from the Pendletons heralds spring in such crisp, bright tones that the same vegetable from Argentina forever tastes flat and hollow. And when the person who grew the berries, apricots, or potatoes is just down the road, every meal you eat ties you into your community and a purpose beyond mere sustenance.
Blackbird Bakery 