Notes from a Small Existence :: Dessert

It’s been many summers now that I’ve been checking out “A Fine Dessert” by Emily Jenkins & Sophie Blackall from the library across the street and reading it with my daughters before making the highlighted dessert, Blackberry Fool. It’s a simple, airy, summery dessert that even the smallest hands can help create. The book documents the making of the dish through generations of households in a really creative and insightful way, beginning with a rather laborious process in the “olden times” and ending with a modern family whipping it up quickly from store-bought ingredients and serving it at a dinner party in San Diego. Start to finish, it’s a delight!

And of course we have to make the Blackberry Fool every time we read the book! By chance, we have some amazing neighbors who, a couple of years ago, planted a blackberry bush along the fence dividing our backyards. It’s not a high fence, so anything that grows on one side inevitably hangs over to the other (sometimes a benefit, sometimes not… they are, sadly, the recipients of a lot of weeds from our side of the fence…) and this year we had a bumper crop hanging over our little sitting garden. The kids were delighted and June was filled with purple fingers and thorns in bare feet. I almost missed the window, but thankfully, right at the tail end of the season, I harvested just enough blackberries from our side of the fence to make a Blackberry Fool and share the book with Sylvi.

This photo was 100% posed right before posting this because why would I have taken a photo when we were reading it together the first dozen times back at the beginning of June, long before it became overdue?

But this photo—of just baaaaarely enough blackberries—and the rest are authentic, from when we made it last month.

We started with the whisk….

But finished with the electric mixer hahaha.

No photos of it once we strained the blackberries and added the juice, but it was beautiful and delicious. A delight every time!

Loving neighbors, our beloved library, and backyard berries—the small life is a good life.