Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 22 (June 28, 2015)

This weekend has been out of the normal, which would have been visiting as many museums as I can. Today was no exception, where I went berry picking with Black, Cameron, Hui, Amy, and her boyfriend Tyler (Hui and Amy are family friends of Black). Today was cool and cloudy, so being outside picking berries was not unbearably hot.

We went first to pick cherries and blueberries. The tart cherries were super high up in the trees, taunting our shortness. Only the dark ruby red cherries were ripe, and even then, they were more sour than sweet. The blueberries grew in abundance on the bushes, and our buckets were filled in no time.

We did find a few itty bitty strawberries, but most of the strawberries have either been picked, or decimated by the incredible amounts of rain we've been getting because they grow so close to the ground. We then went to find blackberries, and despite most of them being pink and unripened and absolutely tongue-flippingly sour and bitter, I managed to fill half a quart with them, and I am so very proud of myself. I also managed to eat lots of blackberry "bubbles" (most of the blackberries were oddly formed so that they were just aggregates of ink blue bubbles) (not that I didn't eat my body weight in blueberries already) and my hands were stained from the juice. There were a few raspberry bushes and I managed to pick a few, but they weren't very tasty.

The most perfect blackberry (and most largest) I've ever seen. It's beautiful. I ate it.

Afterwards, we were heading out, but a sign that read "black raspberries" caught our eye and our curiosity, so we decided to make one last stop before leaving. Thank goodness we stopped because black raspberries just might be my favorite fruit. Until today, I had never heard of the fruit "black raspberry," and now I was seeing bushes and bushes filled with these gleaming black beauties. After eating just as much as I was putting in my basket, with each berry tasting even better than the next, I think it's safe to say that black raspberries have trumped ordinary pink raspberries in flavor and juiciness.

These pink raspberries are unripened and grossly sour. Trust me, I tried one. 

Look at how fat and delicious they look!

My hands were stained purple at this point...it looked liked they were covered in blood! It also didn't help that there were thorns on these raspberry bushes.

Afterwards, we went back to Peking Palace (the place we were at yesterday) and ordered 6 different dishes from last night, and beef tripe again. Two nights of amazing food, all spicy goodness that warms your tummy. I may have gained 20 pounds from this weekend, but my want for authentic, delicious Chinese food has been saited. I have been starved for the past 6 years since Silk Mandarin changed ownership (and later closed).

It's back to work tomorrow, with its usual dose of newness. It's my first day of journal club tomorrow (eeep, I still have to read a whole review paper before 1pm tomorrow) and I'm pretty excited!