The Other Woman Cooks

From strawberries to raspberries to blueberries and then that second harvest of raspberries, fresh local berries are the belle of the summer season ball here in western Massachusetts. Cobblers, crisps, buckles, crumbles ... no matter what variation of simple fruit filled dessert you make, it is uniquely American.  Early American cooks were extremely talented at improvising. When the ingredients for their favorite recipes were unavailable, they made do with what they had at hand.  Berries grew wild and bountifully in many regions. Fussy English puddings were turned in for slumps, pies, buckles and cobblers filled with fresh-picked juicy fruits of the season. Homemade simplicity reliant on taste not European pastry techniques...just another example of American ingenuity! BLUEBERRY BUCKLE  Cake Batter: 1 cup (130 grams) all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature 1/3 cup granulated white sugar 1 la...

My first taste of Sheila Lukins came after stumbling across The Silver Palate food shop on Columbus Avenue, NYC in the late 1970s.  It was a short road to discovering chutney wasn’t just a mango and ginger concoction.  Sheila Lukins of Silver Palate Cookbook fame was cutting edge back then.  I was hooked from that first taste all the way to mixing things up with blueberry chutney to glaze Asian style roast chicken . Blueberry chutney was the inspiration for my Spicy Blueberry Barbecue Sauce, an original recipe that made me a national award winner in the Highbush Blueberry Council’s 2008 recipe contest.  Who’da thunk?  Next month will mark two years since Sheila Lukins died -- too young but not without having made her mark on a generation of home cooks like me. This recipe is adapted from an original Silver Palate recipe.  Over the years, I’ve added and subtracted this or that.  Serve with roasted turkey, duck or goose, meat or curries. ...

Earlier this week, Holyoke Home asked that I post my award winning Spicy Blueberry Barbeque Sauce recipe. Good timing for that request as tomorrow is Labor Day and like most Americans, my little family will be celebrating with a traditional last gasp of summer backyard cookout. On the menu is grilled chicken, corn on the cob, broccoli slaw and of course, decadent dark chocolate brownies for dessert. Tomorrow we eat, so today I shopped. It's a short pleasant country drive to find supersweet corn at my favorite farm stand in Whately, Massachusetts. A dozen ears later and it was three miles down River Road to visit Pasiecnik Farms. Four quarts of pre-picked but fresh late season sweet-tart blueberries were exactly what I needed for a triple batch of my now famous sauce - some for now and a few jars put up for later. Who says there's no cure for the summertime blues? SPICY BLUEBERRY BARBEQUE SAUCE 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries ½ cup cider vinegar ½ cup brown sugar 3/4...