The Blues

 
I haven't been cooking or baking much lately.  We have been moving my parents into their new abode.  They are in their 80's and needed to downsize and be on one floor.  So my awesome brother and his awesome wife came up from TN and that is what we have been doing all week- moving them in. 

They have lived in that house for 52 years.  That is a LONG time.  I never knew any other place growing up.  Some people may find it sad, the move and the loss of that house.  I have not frankly. I am more of a "anywhere you hang your hat" kind of gal. The only time it hit me as sad was when we were sitting eating lunch at the table, on paper plates because nearly everything was gone from the kitchen, at that point.  My Mother said, "This is our last meal here at this table."  I got kind of teary eyed then.  All those memories locked up in a table. 

That table was where we gathered every day.  No matter what.  We always ate dinner together.  It was where I crafted. It was where we met to discuss pivotal life events. Its where we gathered with company.  Where we played board games and got silly.  Its where my parents piled a bunch of booze on the table when I was 16 and said, "so your curious about alcohol, go ahead, have at it. Under their watchful eye me and my friend set out to get drunk. (BTW, that was pretty much it for me by the way of alcohol in my teens.)  Other than wine on special occasions.  Everything happened around that table.

We managed some time to go and pick blueberries at our favorite spot.  We go pick at this place every year - for many years.  It started about 9 years ago.  I found the place when I lived in Lockport, NY.  I took my daughter there and at 3 she picked blueberries.  This made me incredibly happy.  My parents always taught me about good food.  Lots of stories around blueberries as a matter of fact.  I use to pick wild blueberries with my parents in the woods of Pennsylvania. They were very tasty blueberries.  My father use to pick blueberries when he was a kid in those same places during the 40's and sell them by the pint along the highway.  He would get paid 10 cents for those pints.  If they couldn't sell all of them, he and his brothers would sell them to a man called Scoblick.  He had some sort of processing center to can the blueberries.  He would pay them 8 cents.  So, obviously, they preferred to sell them along this highway where motorist were happy to pay them 10 cents for some fresh blueberries.

It was totally apropo that I found this blueberry craft beer for my dinner the other day.  It was delicious.  Kind of smacked a little of a wine cooler without all the sweetness of a wine cooler.  I loved it!