An Open Letter to Quinn Farms

Dear Quinn Farms,

I am truly sorry for all the berries I ate off of your bushes today instead of putting them in my basket. I understand that I was only supposed to nibble while I picked but I couldn’t resist, they were so very tasty.

Yes I know, we left with two huge baskets of blueberries and raspberries but you should have weighed me before and after to find out how many really left in my belly.



Ian and I came across blueberries the size of quarters that burst with sweet ripe juice when you bit into them. Brilliantly bright red raspberries hid beneath thousands of deep green leaves, just waiting to be picked. Every time we found a raspberry you could hear my roommate and I yelling "ohh a piece of candy!"



Once again Ian was a real trooper considering uncooked berries don’t sit as well in his stomach as they do in mine. I guess I ate his portion eh. It turns out he is a master blueberry picker who devised plans to find only the ripest berries and doesn’t get detoured by eating them.




Really, you are all so nice so to make it up to you Quinn Farms I will bake my little heart out. I will bake raspberry custard tarts and blueberry pies for Ian; I will make berry sorbet and eat blueberries in milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


Sincerely,
Christie

P.S. There are probably a ton in my roommate Adam's belly too. Sorry.
Check out his post for another account of Ian, Christie, and Adam's great berry adventure!

Strawberry Ice Cream/Sherbert and Strawberry Picking

Over the past month my roommate Adam and I have been following La Ferme Quinn's blog eagerly anticipating the upcoming strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry picking season. Well last week they posted some succulent pictures of plump raspberries and strawberries so we set the date.




Saturday July 12 we drove west, just across the Montreal Bridge and onto a beautiful island called Ile Perrot. Quinn Farm is only about 25 minutes by car (including a Tim Horton’s coffee stop) so it was the perfect outing for a Saturday afternoon. Ian was a real trooper and joined in the fun even though he is allergic to strawberries.


(picture of my roomate Adam)


Quinn Farm is such a beautiful and vast place with old rustic farm houses and miles of vegetable and fruit patches. When we arrived we were given two large baskets and put on a waggon that drove past the raspberry, apple, blueberry, pumpkin, Christmas tree, current,and asparagus fields (I think I even saw zucchini blossoms) right up to hundreds of rows of strawberry plants.

But of course, when we started picking the sky turned grey and it started to drizzle. Because Ian couldn't pick the strawberries he stood behind me the whole time with a giant umbrella pointing out where he saw some big juicy berries. He's the best eh!


By the time we were finished with the strawberries it was too wet to slosh our way through the raspberry bushes (what an insane storm!) so next weekend we're heading back over the bridge to fill up on all the other berries. I can't wait!



Lately I have become an Ice Cream queen due to David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop" so the second we arrived back at home I started on the Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. I couldn’t help myself so I doubled the amount of strawberries called for, not the best idea in terms of texture and I ended up with more of a sherbert, but all those field berries made the tastiest strawberry "sherbert" that I have ever had!

I had a hard time picking between the Strawberry frozen yogurt or ice cream and in the end the ice cream won out. But, here is the frozen yogurt recipe, it looks very similar and I will be trying it soon.


(Note from Ian: The large, shirtless man on the right hand side of the photo was a very sweet man. He had actually taken his shirt off because it was raining, and he had brought the tiny girl semi hidden at the center of the photo Strawberry picking, but it started raining and she was cold, so he took his shirt off and drapped it on her. She then ran around the field picking and eating strawberries, it was really cute, she ran by me and had a whole face smeared with strawberries and the biggest smile ever. )