Mulberry country update

The mulberry syrup finished steeping and now adds color and flavor to all sorts of liquids, including iced tea a la Snapple.  We tried it with Nancy, and agree that the sweet red syrup retains the subtle taste of fresh mulberries.  We hope to try the recipe with blueberries in NH, so the tartaric acid will travel with us.

In the past few weeks I've followed up on an author I first encountered in Gourmet magazine - Edna Lewis, 1916-2006.  If you don't know her, Craig Claiborne called her "the South's answer to Julia Child".  She grew up in the African-American farm community Freetown in Orange County, Virginia, on farmland given to her grandfather by his former slavemaster Claiborn Mason (yes, that Mason family).  She became a famous chef in NYC in the 50s, known for her elegant southern cooking for celebrities such as Marlon Brando and later collaborations with Alabama-born star chef Scott Peacock. 

Her legacy rests on the lyrical cookbooks/memoirs she wrote about growing up in Freetown. Nothing mars her memories of childhood in the segregated South, nothing bad happens inside their self-sufficient circle fed by the bounty of field and forest. If you loved the Little House books in your childhood, you'll love reading Edna Lewis and making her recipes now.  Just be forewarned – lard butter and cream are not dirty words in her dishes.

I'd determined to try her recipe for mulberry syrup out of free berries that shower down on our backyard. What to do when I lost a foot and hand? To the rescue – my Intrepid carpool partner Toby and her husband Dennis who had harvested their mulberries in years past. Two days ago they picked 6 cups of beautifully purple berries for me. My patient kitchen assistant Art then procured the secret ingredient, tartaric acid, from our beer/winemaking shop, and mixed it and boiling water with the mulberries. Today, we dissolved  sugar in the mulberry juice and decanted the syrup into Mason jars  for two weeks of aging. Thank you friends and family for saving mulberry season for me!