Living Beyond Lingonberry Lane

I write from my home in Portland, in suburbia, yet on the edge of the woods.  Oregon is the land of berries.  Oregon is famous for raspberries, blueberries, and marionberries.   Yesterday, I bought fresh cranberries grown in Bandon, Oregon on the coast.  Vincent Family Cranberries cultivated these berries with ‘love and pride’.  The cranberries are beautiful and fresh and tart without a little sweetener.  These cranberries are the closest berry I know to the lingonberry that I can find fresh in Oregon.

The lingonberry grows wild in the boreal forest on a low evergreen bush.  As a child, living on Lingonberry Lane, in Alaska, we used to spend our summer days in the forest by the river and watch the growth of the lingonberries.  The lingonberry would blossom as a pretty pink flower at the beginning of Alaska’s short growing season and in the fall became the ripe yummy beautiful scarlet berry that my Mom would make into crisps, lingonberry orange bread and lingonberry sauce at Thanksgiving.  Lingonberries were so important to our family during the holidays, my mother would send a package of the prized berries via USPS to our homes in the ‘lower 48’ so we could enjoy our very own lingonberry sauce in Ohio and Minnesota.

My relationship to the lingonberry and my love of good food began to cultivate on Lingonberry Lane in my youth.  I was surrounded by a host of good cooks including my mother, Carol, a home economist turned teacher and my Aunt Margie, the homesteader, gardener, community activist and environmentalist.  I grew up watching these wonder women growing fresh produce in their gardens and cooking from scratch after harvest.  I’ve been living the city life for many years since I left home and moved first to Minnesota and now in Oregon.  But the importance of good, nourishing, healthful food was not lost on me during my formative years.

Yesterday, after I purchased those lovely cranberries, I made a delicious berry crisp to celebrate the coming of fall.  With ‘Love and Pride’ I share my Mom’s recipe for Berry Crisp.  I’ve made this crisp many times with countless berry varieties and every time it’s a crowd pleaser.  I recommend a combination of blueberries and raspberries during the summer season and a cranberry/rhubarb combination is divine.  Frozen berries are an excellent choice if you want to create a winter dessert.   I made a slight change from the original recipe using raw cane sugar instead of white sugar mixed with the berries and 1/2 cup raw cane sugar and 1/2 brown sugar in the topping in hopes that I’d still get the carmel effect in the topping after baking.  I’d say my wish was granted, I thoroughly enjoyed the taste of baked cranberries in the crisp with a topping of fresh whipped cream and a little vanilla.

Carol’s Berry Crisp

• 6 cups berries (lingonberries, cranberries, raspberries, blueberries…frozen or fresh)
• 1 cup raw cane sugar (or 1 cup sugar)
• 3 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour)

• 1/2 cup raw cane sugar (or 1/2 cup brown sugar)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour)
• 1  cube (1/2 cup) frozen or chilled butter, cut up
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Thoroughly mix topping with pastry blender.   Butter should be blended as fine as possible.  Pour topping and evenly spread over berries.  Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until berries are bubbly and topping is lightly browned.

Serve warm w/freshly whipped cream or your favorite vanilla ice cream.