Brambles are in season! What are brambles? Raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, swampberries, boysenberries, cloudberries, black caps, and any other wonderful members of the rose family that produce an aggregate berry. A recent trip to Kingston Point Park in Kingston, NY, had us eating almost everything we could pick.

The berries that grew at the point were what the locals here commonly call black caps. These are wild black raspberries. They are usually found on upright, thorny, raspberry canes, and look like a slightly smaller version of the commercial variety. The taste is excellent.

Amy and Alec found a nice stand of wild red raspberries, looking much like commercial ones, and a few bushes of the odd, maple-leafed, purple-flowering-raspberry near Esopus, NY. These are also upright plants and easy to locate. You can spot them well in advance in the Spring with their small, white, flowers. The purple flowering raspberry has a very showy rose-like purple flower.

Blackberries, dewberries, and swampberries, grow along runners tangled in the weeds. These berries have larger aggregrate parts than the raspberry-like fruits, just like store-bought blackberries.

As I mentioned in this post, my mom makes jam every summer. Most of what she cans comes from fruit that she and my dad pick themselves. The blueberries come from a Pick-Your-Own place on Sauvie Island, the plums comes from the yards of friends and the blackberries are typically come from a wild patch in the Columbia River Gorge. This year they drove out to the regular blackberry patch, only to discover that it had been cut back severely during some road work. They picked what they could and headed back to Portland, without enough berries to make a batch of jam.

The next night, they headed for a blackberry bramble in their neighborhood that my mom discovered one night while walking the dog, to see if they couldn't make up the difference. They started picking, wandering around a bit as you do when you are following the patterns of available berries. They had been picking for awhile, excited to have found a source of berries, when they heard a woman say, "Excuse me?" Looking up, they realized that they had inadvertently crossed over into someone's yard. She continued, "I was planning on making pie." My parents apologized (and were relieved to notice that there were still tons of berries left on the bushes) and headed home with what they had already picked (luckily, there was a plenty there for jam).

In this case, it was just an honest mistake. However, there have been times when my mom and I have been a little bit more deliberate in our foraging of fruit. Let's hear your stories of liberated fruits and vegetables.

When you think of Gazpacho, you probably think of hot summer days and refreshing cold soup. Unfortunately the weather where I am isn't cooperating with that theory, so let's just imagine that it is Valentine's Day with a hot fireplace instead. This soup is extremely versatile and can be served at various times throughout the day. It would be perfect for breakfast, lunch, or as a starting course for dinner. You can even use it as a dessert, adding a touch of ice cream for decoration. Personally I like to serve it with a few cinnamon sugar bread sticks, just to add a little more substance to an otherwise liquid meal.

It makes a great option for Valentine's Day because of the color and the obvious health benefits, while tasting as sweet and decadent as any dessert you could serve up. For full recipe and directions, click on the link below.

Pairing lemon with other fruits in desserts is a great idea, as the bright, tart flavor of lemon really helps to highlight other flavors. Bea, from la Tartine Gourmande, used this strategy when making her luscious Blackberry Tartlets with Lemon Cream. The tarts are quite easy to make because the elements are made separately and combined before serving. The tart shells are made with pâte brisée and are prebaked, a step that you could easily do a day or in advance if you want to try the tarts during the holidays and need to save time. The lemon cream, which is really like a light and rich lemon-flavored custard, can also be done ahead of time. Before serving, the cream is spooned into the tarts and garnished with fresh berries. It looks like Bea gave some a sprinkle of confectioners' sugar and garnished others with small sprigs of mint.

Although she used blackberries in her tarts, Bea is quick to point out that you should use whatever type of fruit is seasonally available - strawberries, raspberries, etc. We're suspect that the tarts will taste just as good without any fruit topping, too.

Earlier this month, we heard about the findings of a study that showed blackberries as having the highest concentrations of antioxidants per one cup serving of any food. Granted, we don't necessarily think anyone would want to eat a cup of blackberries every single day for the rest of his or her life. You might be leaving out other important foods by doing so, and besides, eating the same thing every day is boring.

A few days ago, our man Joe posted about the findings from a new study that singled out blackberries as having the highest concentration of antioxidants per 1 cup serving. In fact, blackberries were getting all kinds of love from the press. With all that attention, my guess is that there was a run on blackberries at the market.

But nobody seemed to notice that the abstract for the actual study also listed raspberries, pecans, and ground cloves as part of the top ten of the 1,000 foods that were tested. Hey! Why no love for the raspberry? If you're eating a bowl of blackberries for their antioxidants, it might be even more worthwhile to toss in some raspberries and pecans. As for the ground cloves...well, I'll leave that for Holiday baking.

In addition to simply having high concentration of antioxidants, raspberries' antioxidant capacity comes from ellagitannins, which are a family of anti-cancer compounds that almost exclusive to the raspberry. Beyond phytonutrients, raspberries also provide nutrition in the form of manganese and vitamin C.

That's right. Nobody puts rasp-baby in the corner.

From college campuses to groups of friends, dining "clubs" are sprouting up to build new friendships, nurture old friendships, and simply find good places to eat.

Do the words "real life" on a cookbook really mean the recipes are manageable in real life? Real Life Entertaining: Easy Recipes and Unconventional Wisdom by Jennifer Rubell has 25 menus that definitely do-able, with recipes like: Tex-Mex Breakfast Mess, Salsa, Chicken with Garlic Cloves and Rosemary, Mashed Potatoes with Figs and ParmesanWarm Mustardy Potatoes, Grilled Skirt Steak with Orange-Mint Chimichurri, and Watercress and Goat Cheese Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette.

At the farmers' market, blackberries are ripe for the picking and making a Blackberry-Basil Tart. Also, pick up fresh fruit to make Sangria. When looking for watermelons, it's ready when it thumps a B-flat.

Did you know that blackberries and artichoke hearts have higher antioxidant levels than chocolate, coffee, tea or red wine, for that matter? Me neither.

A recent study of 1,000 foods and beverages shows that the top five are blackberries, Welch's 100% Grape Juice, Ocean Mist artichoke hearts, walnuts and strawberries. These items beat out blueberries, red wine, chocolate, coffee and tea, all often cited for high levels of antioxidants. The real surprise to me was the artichoke hearts. Guess I'll have to start eating more antipasto.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Oslo, Norway, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Minnesota.

A dewberry is a relative of the blackberry that grows throughout the the country, particularly in New England and the South. They get their name from the fact that the berries are often seen covered in dew in the early mornings. Unlike other berries, the dark dewberries, which can be nearly black when ripe, reflect the color of the sky when they are covered with dew, making it noteworthy enough to generate the name. The New England berries are relatively common, but the Southern berries are less frequently seen because they grow only in the wild and are too fragile to ship. Actually, it would be more correct to say that they are rarely eaten and often seen, since they grown like weeds along fence lines and in vacant lots. The berries themselves are difficult to harvest. They grow on thorny vines, which for dense nests as though to protect the berries. Unfortunately for berry lovers, they taste good. Very good.

Going back generations, people in areas where dewberries grow, especially in Texas, have headed out to harvest them annually, just as their parents and grandparents did. They don’t do this to make a profit from selling the berries, though. They do it because nothing beats the smell of a fresh dewberry cobbler coming out of the oven. There is even a dewberry festival, which took place this past weekend in Cameron, Texas. If you can’t pick your own, the farmer’s market is a better place to look for them than the supermarket, but once you get some, try making a cobbler, or just serve with fresh, whipped cream.