Fresh Raspberry Cake

1 c flour

3/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg

1/3 c buttermilk

1/3 c butter, melted and cooled

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 c fresh raspberries (or enough to fully cover top of cake)

Crumb Topping:
1/2 c brown sugar

1 T butter

2 T flour

Combine dry ingredients. Beat egg, buttermilk, butter and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to wet. Mix well. Spread in a greased 9X9 baking pan. Place raspberries evenly over top. Sprinkle on crumb topping. Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes.

This cake is delicious slightly warm, at room temp or cold, with fresh whipped cream or ice cream (Honkin Goose is a great brand - also available at Lepps) and garnished with fresh berries. I've also had it with a mixture of blackberries and raspberries and I'm betting berries mixed with rhubarb would be fabulous. Eat it and swoon.

Rapturous over Raspberries

It's raspberry and strawberry season in the Fraser Valley and lately I have been mixing eggs and buttermilk, flour and sugar and popping Rasberry Cakes in and out of the oven to serve to friends and family. This delicious cake recipe was passed on to me by my sister-in-law who brought one of these lovely sweet, tangy, crunchy, sugary treats as a dessert to a family dinner at our place. Her version used raspberries and blackberries - yum! - which she had purchased at the famous Granville Island Market in Vancouver. I purchased my beautiful berries farm-fresh from Lepp's Farm Market in Abbotsford BC and made a cake last night for a very special group of women. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than cooking or baking for people I love. It was a mild June night and we sat out on the deck, overlooking the Fraser River - shared secrets, shared food, laughed and then patted our full tummies over tea.

Next up: Strawberry Angel Food Cake for my bro, he's turning 50! Off to Lepp's I go with berry basket in hand.

Visit Lepp's online: http://leppfarmmarket.com/

Check back tomorrow for the Raspberry Cake recipe!

Coming Soon: Raspberry Cake

Such a tease! Coming soon: Raspberry Cake. Made from Fraser Valley Raspberries. Meanwhile, read some of my other posts.

Addicted To Asparagus

There are few things on the planet that make me as happy as fresh asparagus. (It's my one weakness). Last week we travelled through the beautiful Okanagan Valley, a few hours from where we live in BC, where the fruit trees are beginning to blossom and the vineyards are greening. There isn't a lot of produce available yet - (just wait til summer when hands and faces are sticky with cherry juice, cheeks are stuffed with fresh peaches and the apples and plums literally fall off the trees), but one thing that is available in abundance in mid-June in the OK Valley is asparagus.

We bought a bumper batch of it and I spent the remaining drive home daydreaming and drooling over all the possible ways I might prepare it in the upcoming week. Cream of Asparagus Soup, Asparagus Frittata, Asparagus Pastry Puffs, Creamy Risotto with Asparagus, Penne with Asparagus and Lemon, Roasted Asparagus...mmmmm. Those slender green spears had their way with me all the way home. Pity my travelling companions who wanted to converse or point out breathtaking scenery or curious wildlife. Not a chance.

While I did drop off a bouquet of the little green beauties to a neighbour as a thank-you for help proferred during a recent recuperation, hubby and I basically spent the week in an asparagus chow down.

How did we serve it? Steamed. No salt. No pepper. No butter. Naked. Vegetable heaven.

It's Meatless Monday. Make something delicious with vegetables. Begin with the A's....

Tureens and Travel

This week's fabulous finds are from two different scouting outings. Keeping up with my collection of fruit-embossed dishes, I picked up this great gravy boat and plate at the local Value Village. I already have an official gravy boat that matches my good china, but I came across this one while I was in post-pedicure bliss browsing with a dear friend, and couldn't resist. (I'm sure it will be handy for those 40-person buffet dinners we're always hosting.)

The darling little tureen was discovered in a second-hand store in my hometown. I travelled there last weekend and my mom, aunt and I spent part of a lovely June afternoon poking through shelves and riffling through boxes. In a spurt of familial generosity, I decided to treat and our bill was a whopping $10.25. We all came away happy, with little treasures tucked in our bags. I'm not too certain exactly what I will use the tureen for....it is a bit small for soup. Perhaps it will be perfect for sauce. I'm thinking something from Julia Child. Sauce Duxelles anyone?

Memory Lane

Day has passsed to dusk, and dusk to night. A long day of driving, car weary and silly we leave our roadside motel and take a drive down memory lane to find some good spagetti and fat pieces of garlic toast.

We leave the restaurant and the scent hits me - Syringa - suddenly I am a child again. It is June and the back door slams behind me, screen bouncing once or twice before it closes. Small, imaginary footsteps clatter off the porch.

I am launched by a sweet flower smell into a soft spring night with the promise of summer folded up with the moon. This is East Trail, beside the river. I am home.

Loving Up the Garden

Crazy for loving up the garden today! Yesterday, I harvested the first few lettuce leaves which became a yummy salad for me and hubby. And today I have four gallon-size hierloom tomatoes to plant and stake. Black Krim, Tiger Stripe, Italian Paste and a gorgeous looking Yellow Brandywine Beefsteak. Just imagine how pretty my salads are going to be. The scarlet runner beans are beginning to climb. The peas are are getting bushy, and despite a woeful lack of sun (please Mr. Sun, stay out!), my basil is valiantly leafing out and devoting a few stalks here and there to spicing up our lunches and dinners.

And speaking of herbs...I do need to sing the praises of my rosemary - well, not just mine, but rosemary wherever it grows. What a delightful, hardy, spicy, aromatic useful little tree-bush this is! Mine grows really well for me. I have it in-ground and I also keep a pot of it on the deck for quick access when I'm cooking up a storm. I can also move the pot close to the house for warmth and winter it over (I wrap mine in little white twinkle lights in the winter, which help to keep the plant warm and look absolutely gorgeous through the sliding doors at Christmastime).

I use sprigs of rosemary mixed in with cut flowers and I love to stick a sprig into a ribbon to decorate a parcel or gift. I once used it to decorate the table for a dinner party, tucking it into napkin rings for each guest. I thought one of the couples coming to visit might be in a tiny bit of tricky water, and since rosemary symbolizes fidelity ... well, it couldn't hurt! The couple seems to be doing really well these days and I like to think it had something to do with this friendly little herb - and possibly the support of good friends, good food and good intentions.

Long known as the herb of remembrance, rosemary symbolizes loyalty and friendship and has traditionally been associated with both weddings and funerals. Believing the gift came from Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, brides wore it in wreaths as a symbol of their fidelity.

Things We Treasure

Today's fabulous find is not a find at all, but actually a touching surprise. Unexpectedly, an old friend presented me (in multiple senses of the word 'present') with a lovely glass pedestal bowl that came from her mother's house. I have an inordinate fondness for bowls, love glass dishes in general and have a sweet attachment to previously loved items. I like things that have been around for awhile, show a little wear and tear and might just have a quirky history. (Maybe they remind me of someone?). This particular dish also boasts an embossed fruit motif - one of my favourites, especially pears. I have a few embossed fruit mismatched plates and bowls, my everyday Mikasa is decorated with a vintage fruit design and, from my mother's house, I have an amazing embossed fruit soup tureen.

There is a bittersweetness to receiving this gift. I know my friend is cleaning out her mother's home, sifting through a lifetime's collection of houseware and hardware, linens and pictures, clothes and books. Each item being washed, cleaned, sorted and allocated to someone or somewhere. She chose this pretty little bowl for me. Somewhere, at some time her mother chose this pretty little bowl for herself - or perhaps it was a gift, or something she simply picked up at a yard sale and tucked into a cupboard. It came her way somehow and now, happily, its come my way. Given by my friend, wrapped in a handmade apron and filled with unexpected treasure.

The ancient Chinese believed that the pear was a symbol of immortality. Pear trees are long-lived. In Chinese the word li means both "pear" and "separation," and for this reason, tradition says that to avoid a separation, friends and lovers should not divide pears between themselves.