It's easy to fall in love with Portland. Even if you're a hard core urban dweller with a gritty past. Or a fast paced Wall-Streeter. Or a punk rock anarchist. Or someone who stands firmly in the middle of the road. Or an Earth-Firster. Or a fagilicious pretty boi. Or a single mother. Or a polyamorist. Or a restaurateur. Or a lone baker. Or a fence-sitter. Or a tea drinker.
Who doesn't love a place where 15 minutes from a bustling downtown center complete with
thousands of pedestrians, cars, buses and electric street trains, commerce and art, commercialism and
competitive capitalism, buskers and food-carts, town squares and traffic circles, farmers' markets and strip joints, bars and AA Clubhouses, cross dress shops and Aveda hair salons, skateboarders and hacky sackers, cabdrivers and bike messengers,
is
an island devoted to agriculture?
Sauvie Island is a wondrous place. And now I fear I will never drive back to Northern California. Today I spent the morning, just as an oppressive heat was about to lay heavily over Portland, picking blueberries amongst the clipped chirpings of other voices doing the same. U-Pick farms are amazing. They are educational, delicious (my friend said she tells the owners every year that they should weigh her before and after she picks!), idyllic, country, pretty, and rewarding. Everyone is talking about pies and jam and cobblers and crisps.
And at $1 per pound, the outcome can only be fruitful.
These berries will inform my upcoming classes. They will dot my simple summer breakfasts, and perhaps even make it to an ice cream machine as an intense sorbet.
Will you do any U-Picking this summer? Do you go to the same farm every year?
For more blueberry picking images, check out the little cottage that houses more of my photographs: Flickr.
Lovely photo.It's been so long, but when I was a kid we used to go strawberry picking every June and sometimes I think I ate as many as I picked! We also went apple picking. Now that I would actually use the stuff and make buckets and buckets of jam and apple butter, I never go.
Posted by: deb | 04 July 2007 at 09:12 AM
This being almost my 2nd full year in Northern California, I went fruit picking in Brentwood (at Peter Wolfe Ranch) for the first time 2 weekends ago and picked apricots and white peaches. Sad to say we're down to our last 2 peaches already! When I was growing up on SoCal, my dad was really into picking cherries in Apple Valley :) Man, I would love to have access to all those plump looking blueberries though...take care!
Posted by: Susan | 04 July 2007 at 11:26 AM
Oh, this brings back memories of going to the big pumpkin patch on Sauvie's Island in October... of riding a bumpity hay cart to a barn filled with scarecrows and bedsheet ghosts. Of clutching paper cups filled with hot cider.
So glad you're having fun...
xox
Posted by: Jennifer Jeffrey | 04 July 2007 at 02:46 PM
Sauvie Island is an Oregon treasure. I'm looking forward to meeting you and some of those blueberries on Sunday.
Posted by: Lynn D. | 04 July 2007 at 02:47 PM
Shuna,
I'm signed up for Sunday's class. I'm trying to decide if I should walk, bike or drive. Will we have goodies (e.g. a pie) to bring home from class?
Please advise...
Thanks!
Posted by: Kecia | 04 July 2007 at 11:28 PM
It just sounds wonderful. We moved to the west coast a few years back, and we've been dying to check out Portland; maybe as a fun place to visit, maybe as a place to settle down. You make it sound even more wonderful than we thought.
Now, which airline?
Cheers!
Posted by: almost vegetarian | 05 July 2007 at 12:41 PM
Kecia,
There's a good chance you'll be bringing pie dough home, but probably not a whole pie. I'm sorry-- I don't know exactly as this is the first time I've taught in a new place...
you'll be getting a direct email with info today or tomorrow.
almost vegetarian,
bring a down payment for a house when you come to visit. seriously, Portland is an amazing place.
Posted by: shuna fish lydon | 05 July 2007 at 03:30 PM
I only know of one organic U-pick farm near me, Silferleaf Farm (Tom Johnson, prop., 460 Strawberry Hill Rd., Concord, MA 978-369-3624 silferleaf at cs dot com). This place only has raspberries, though, and according to the NOFA/Mass 2007-2008 Organic Food Guide, they don't come in 'til late August.
There's also an organic farm called Green Meadows Farm (Andrew Rodgers, 650 Asbury St., Hamilton, MA 978-468-3720 www.gmfarm.com) which I'm going to have to find and check out someday. Supposedly it has "dozens of PYO crops."
Posted by: Sara | 06 July 2007 at 09:36 AM
"(my friend said she tells the owners every year that they should weigh her before and after she picks!)" Ahem. obfuscationis great, but I'd rather not change my sex!
Posted by: Food Dude | 10 July 2007 at 05:20 PM
Hey Food Duuuude!
I did that so that we could keep you undercover... Hey, I'll kiss and tell if you will...
Posted by: shuna fish lydon | 10 July 2007 at 10:48 PM