Gooseberry-blueberry crunch, pages 170-171

Gooseberries and blueberries before they are baked

My parents have a gooseberry bush growing in their back yard. Gooseberry bushes have narrow thorns with green, very tart berries that eventually turn pinkish purple as they ripen. That I know of, most people prefer them tart to cook with rather that letting them ripen. Gooseberries are a scruffy bush. They grow in scruffy areas, like along railroad tracks, in old fields, overgrazed woods and old homesteads. And they have a scruffy appearance with their scrappy thorns and disorganized branches.

My parents have a very old home. The gooseberry bush is growing beside a rickety apple tree next to the old chicken house turned garden shed. Mom froze two bags of gooseberries and let me have them to continue making recipes with this winter. Besides, the berries had been in the freezer long enough and were due to be used.

The first dessert recipe I made with gooseberries was kind of like a crisp with gooseberries, blueberries and a nutty, oat topping. Seemed like a safe bet for the good dessert and I was right. It was hard not to like.

I rarely choose to have ice cream on top of a dessert as I feel it pollutes whatever dessert is underneath, but this one called for it. The gooseberries are so tart and intense that I thought the ice cream mellowed it out nicely. Next time I make this dessert, and I do hope there is a next time, I think I'll try cooking the gooseberries down a bit in a saucepan until they open up rather than baking them whole. I'm telling you, when you took a bite of the dessert with a whole gooseberry and it popped open in your mouth, shewweee, it was
T-A-R-T tart.

Fred got me a new camera for Christmas with a larger apeture than I've had before. I am enjoying taking food photos with it, which is why he picked this camera out for me. Before, the two things I knew to look for on a digital camera were # of megapixels and how much it would zoom. I didn't realize what a big difference the apeture made it getting bright photos even in lower light.