Berry Heaven

Strawberries

We headed out of Corner Brook, and at various times along the way, we had the good fortune to run into berries. The first time was along the highway, a U-pick it yourself type place. So we stashed our bikes under a bridge, and used the strawberry field as an excuse to get out of the light rain and off the wet roadway.

These we summarily devoured along with some chocolate pudding we had purchased before leaving Corner Brook.


Wild Raspberries

That very night we camped in a field where we discovered, in addition to the plethora of mosquitoes, a ton of wild raspberries. We still had our little basket, and were able to fill that up in the morning and add it to our oatmeal, which, doctored up with nuts, flax seed meal, wheat germ, maple syrup, and other goodies, is becoming quite the staple for us. But topped with wild raspberries, it was the best oatmeal any of us had ever had.


Also, we finally got smart and before leaving Corner Brook, managed to squeeze a bottle of bug spray into our $24/day budget. Camping in this spot was a victory in all respects...

Cherries

The next berry stop was when we arrived to Woody Point, a town that was littered with cherry trees, waiting to be picked clean, mostly in front of people's houses. We found a house with a particular abundance of trees and cherries and asked the owner if we could pick some of them. He told us to go right ahead, and when we offered to pick some for him, he declined, saying that he didn't eat "those things."

Most were easily within reach, but to fill up two baskets worth, we had to improvise a little.



They were a bit tart, but nothing a little sugar couldn't fix up. Perfect for a cherry pie. So we then made it our mission to make a pie happen. Dominic is a pie chef extraordinaire (and berry pies are his specialty), but our cooking gear is woefully inadequate for such an undertaking. Primarily because we lack an oven, but not having a pie pan makes it difficult too. Nick had a clever idea which Dominic bravely tried to execute--convince someone to let us use their kitchen facilities in exchange for baking two pies and giving them one of them.

One couple said we could come back the next day and have at it while they were out and about, but we were headed across the bay early the next morning. Unfortunately, no one else would take the bait. So we came up with plan B. Cherry syrup for pancakes. The pancakes we would figure out later, but we felt relatively confident we could handle that with the portable kitchen outfit already at our disposable.

We'll do a post on food later on, and hopefully post a video if we have fast enough internet, but for now, suffice it to say, we made some delicious cherry syrup and we found a way to get it in our bodies, pancakes or no.

Assorted

We have also found along roadways and trails an assortment of other berries including wild blueberries, which we can easily identify, and two others which we have been on a mission to find: partridgeberry and bakeapple. Both are common to this area, and we have had some lovely jam made from them, so we've been roaming along testing out every berry we stumble across. Most turn out to be "spitters," either because of taste or our reasonably-intact attempts at self-preservation, but we feel confident we have found partridgeberry at some point in our attempts. Bakeapple, which is actually a relative of the raspberry we thought we had successfully found and eaten, till we found out from a more knowledgeable person that bakeapple is actually 2 to 3 times the size of a cherry, and does not consist of a cluster of small berries. What we had eaten was approximately the size of a raspberry and resembled it in its composition. Wonder what that was...

Raspberry Chocolate Wonder

On our way back to Corner Brook, we were forced to stop in the same strawberry field we had picked before, but alas, the strawberry season had just ended. So instead, we picked raspberries and that night, again with our host Ryan, Gretta whipped up one of the most fabulous desserts known to man: chocolate cream pie with chocolate cookie crust, topped with raspberries. We were hoping to snap a photo of it for the blog, but once it was removed from the fridge, we were too mesmerized by its beauty and allure to think of anything other than how to divide it up and feel its explosion on our taste buds. One last thing about this pie. You'd never know it, but it's vegan! Great, since our host Ryan is vegan. Gretta would be happy to share the recipe with you all if you just ask...