Fruits Of Summer

I have spent more than 6 years over all in the UK since pre-university and yet I have never ever went fruit picking during the summers.

It is not that I did not want to, only the fact that I have always gone back home for the summer hols during my undergraduate years and of course, during that time, one did not particularly look for family oriented activities, which is exactly what a day out picking fruits is.

But on Saturday, a friend and her family mentioned that they were going and I thought that it was high time that I do something about my 'inexperience'.

The farm that we went was near Enfield town, a farm called Parkside Farm. It was a beautiful day; sunny but windy too, so one did not feel too hot doing all that 'labour'. We arrived there at noon and straight away went to the picnic area to have lunch with them.

And then we went to 'work'...

First, there were the strawberries.

I have an allergy to these - so didn't fancy picking too many of them although Mr S did go back here later to fill our strawberry bucket..





Then, there were the blackberries.

As you can see, the ones that are not ripe yet look similar to raspberries, but as they ripen, they change colour and become fat and engorged with juice!





Then, there were the sweet corns.

There were signs at the entrance stating that the visitors to the farm were not allowed to eat the fruits and veges before paying for them but there were some visitors who behaved appallingly - yup, that's right, we caught some women eating the sweetcorns right after they picked them! And they had finished about 5-6 between them! I was told later by a friend that these taste real good freshly picked, eaten straight away uncooked, but seriously...

My eldest scrutinising his blackberry juice-smeared hand - he was looking for an insect that he thought was crawling on his hand.

Then there were the raspberries.

There were several types of them but I really prefer the Magda and Autumn Bliss variety - their stems and leaves were not as prickly as one other type - I cannot recall the name for that one at the moment. The Magda and Autumn Bliss variety were seriously yummy!

Funnily enough, although I was wearing a pristine white top and also handling a lot of ripe blackberries and raspberries - my shirt was just as pristine when I left the farm a few hours later! Bravo, eh?

As we left the farm, in the car, this was how the boys look like:



We didn't go home straight away, however. We went to a Chinese Supermarket near to our house to get some galangal and tamarind, and after waking my lil one up so that we can all go together into the shop, this was the scene they made:


Lastly, the fruits of our labour in our kitchen...



Now, all I have to do is to find a variety of ways to finish them off; eat them plain, with some fresh cream (my favourite!), make cheesecake topping..etc. etc. etc....