Boozy Fruit Salad Season Has Arrived
But first, a message about supporting farmers hit by this weekend's flooding rain
In This Issue
• Have Your Farmers’ Backs After Flooding Rains
• Buy Local Fruit, Make Local Boozy Fruit Salad
• This Week’s Outer Suburb/Exurb Farmers Market Schedule
Have Your Farmers’ Backs After Flooding Rains
Local Food Forum sends its thoughts to our region’s farmers who endured massive amounts of rain — five inches or more in some locations — during this weekend’s downpours.
The reasons that we started the Seasons of Change series almost immediately after we launched the newsletter was to bring home the challenges — as well as the joys — of life on the farm. Farming has always been risky. Most of the risk factors, especially the weather, are completely out of their control. And global climate change has made that risk factor worse, as flooding rains of the type once seen every long while have become an almost annual event.
Just a few weeks ago all the talk was about the exceptionally dry spring. When we asked Tracey Vowell of Three Sisters Garden to write about the weather’s impact on farmers, she reminded that last year farmers in east-central Illinois dealt with 10 inches of rain in a week (numbers that some may be approaching this week). The statistics Tracey shared on the weight and impact of too much rain at once are staggering and are worth a second look.
So please have your farmers’ backs. Buy from those whose crops mostly survived the rain-slaught, because they will still have remediation that will need to be done to their fields and soil. With farmers who have endured some crop loss, be understanding if some items are in short supply at their farmstands or in their CSA boxes.
Farmers know this too shall pass, but in the short run, we’d all welcome a quick return to the dry weather we were recently bemoaning.
Buy Local Fruit, Make Boozy Fruit Salad
Not long after Barb and I moved to Chicago 10 years ago, I started splurging on delicious local fruit. I recalled that my parents once were fond of brandied fruit, I searched online for a recipe for a fruit salad made with liquor, found one, and over time made enough tweaks to call one my own.
After writing about it in several venues over time, I am happy to introduce Local Food Forum readers to my boozy fruit salad recipe. It is super-easy, delicious and endlessly adaptable as the fruits in season change. And the bonus is that the syrup gets fed by the juices in the fruit, so you are getting a little bit of punch in the bargain.
It is “boozy” because the fruit macerates in a syrup that includes a generous shot of your alcoholic beverage of choice. But it is equally delicious with non-alcoholic beverages in the base — just use whatever you think goes well with the types of fruit you are using.
You can make this recipe any time, because you can get fresh or frozen fruit from somewhere in the world at the supermarket all year round. BUT… if you make this salad with freshly picked, perfectly ripe, seasonal local fruit, you will be wowed by the explosion of flavor.
My first-of-season fruit salad is made with all-local strawberries, raspberries, apricots and Rainier cherries (which are a little less red and a little less sweet than the more common bright red sweet cherries). But changes will be made as the summer progresses, so this prep never gets boring. Soon it will include local blueberries, blackberries and peaches. Down the line, melons will join the party.
The liquor in this one is Southern Comfort, which is pretty sweet and thus works well in this syrupy melange. But what I use tends to be driven by what I have most of in the house. The liquor content (if you are using) is as up to your imagination as the fruit combos. I’ve successfully used bourbon, rum, brandy, vodka, gin and tequila (okay, that last one was a tiny bit weird), as well as liqueurs such as ginger and maraschino (which, not surprisingly, works really well with cherries).
And let’s define what we mean by boozy. This recipe actually has a respectably small amount of alcohol. But if you want a bigger kick, add more to taste (though please salad responsibly).
Without further adieu, here’s the base recipe:
3 cups of chopped fruit (pitted if necessary)
fresh-squeezed juice of 1/2 lime
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
1/8 cup liquor or other beverage (roughly 1 ounce)
And of course you can double or triple or whatever multiple you like, which makes this a great way to show off at a gathering or picnic. You can also cut the ingredients by half or smaller if you want just a little.
If you make a boozy fruit salad, please share your combo and we’ll share it with our readers (mail to bob@localfoodforum.com).