Sonoma

Last weekend, B and I went up to Sonoma for a day of eating and fruit-gathering. It ended up being a sunny day in San Francisco that we missed out on, but it was even sunnier and warmer up there. First, we stopped at a great fruit and vegetable stand in Petaluma, and bought some beautiful figs. Then we drove up to the tiny hamlet of Freestone, and stopped to have some fresh, warm fougasse bread and a picnic in the lovely garden adjoining the Wild Flour bakery.

About a mile down the road from the bakery, we stopped again, this time for some blackberry-picking along a particularly fruitful stretch of the Bohemian Highway. Our final stop was at my grandfather's house in Sonoma proper, where we were given some fresh prune plums from his prolific tree to take home.

As you might be able to predict, I've since made three batches of jam (one blackberry and two plum). Fig ice cream was clearly on the agenda too. I also made this fantastic plum galette, which I modified last year with apricots.

The real reason I'm writing this post, though, is to encourage you to find and take advantage of fresh blackberries to make this blackberry frozen yogurt. It is exceptionally delicious and fresh-tasting! However, because it is so easy and relies so heavily on high-quality berries, the recipe fails with store-bought blackberries. So whether you go picking or farmer's-market-ing, make sure you find very ripe, very dark, very sweet berries. And make this frozen yogurt. You won't regret it.