Summer | Blueberry Picking

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Peaceful and scrumptious.

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Ready for the most important rule for picking blueberries? "You must eat while you pick", according to the cute jail bait working the shed. If you're going to do that, you'd better pick organic blueberries.

I went to Chance Creek Blues. You can eat them while you pick and not choke on pesticides. Chances are you'll be chowing on some all-natural fertilizer and insect larvae in the process, but that's part of getting back to nature!

Rule two: pick the darkest berries. Have you ever heard someone say, "The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice"? Well, they know their blueberries.

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Red means stop, green blue means go.

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Rule three: Blueberries are blue. See the red blueberry in my palm above? Don't pick blueberries that look like that. It's tart, waiting to ripen, and it isn't even blue! Blueberries are one of those pain in the ass fruits that don't ripen off the vine, so it's a totally wasted berry, and if too many people pick unripened berries they can ruin the farm's future prospects - ruining the fun for everyone else.

One last note: while I was at the farm, the jail bait advised me to "stick to one bush" and get all the ripe fruit. That may not seem like the most efficient way to pick berries, but I almost filled my bucket picking on just two bushes. That's FOUR POUNDS OF BLUEBERRIES!

Oh well ... at least I won't have to buy any more blueberries for a while!

If you want to try your hand at picking berries, check out PickYourOwn.Org for local growers who will let you get your hands dirty while you eat healthy.

The Dangers of Blueberry Picking

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Picking fruit in Florida can get really ugly. We hang with gators, sun-bathing cotton mouth snakes, rattlesnakes, an assortment of mean spiders, and we all spray poisonous chemicals on our bodies to deter disease-carrying mosquitoes. You can imagine my surprise when, while picking blueberries down at Chance Creek Blues, I observed this warning:

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They forgot to mention "butterflies" and "sunshine".

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My first reaction was that the notice was a joke. The farm is located on the outskirts of Oberlin, a liberal college town full of hipster, ironic Millenials, after all.

I tested my hypothesis on the gentle college graduate manning the shed. I told him I'd been chased by a bee for a couple of feet. He looked startled and asked (very cutely and earnestly), "Ohmygosh, are you okay? You weren't stung, were you?"

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I laughed all the way to the blueberry bushes, high on being the biggest predator in Ohio. My competition that day consisted of a couple of fat beetles and grandmothers. I have to admit, I'm loving it here.

Ohio City's Bounty

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You can lead a horse to water, but he can't drink if the river's on fire!
Photo credit: John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer

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I'm just tickled that Cleveland, ranked consistently as the most miserable city in America, has joined the national restaurant trend toward locally-sourced food, and created green and (hopefully) profitable spaces for its urban population.

Pat Conroy, owner of Great Lakes Brewing Company, has upped his karma points by 1000%. Not only does his company make great local beers (I'm looking at you, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter), he's now recycling the barley left over from the brewing process into compost on one acre of Cleveland's new six acre urban farm project, Ohio City Farm.

The farm sits mere blocks away from the historic West Side Market and just behind the projects, making it accessible to a wide demographic range. The latter will be sold deeply discounted produce, according to Debbi Snook at the Plain Dealer, while the former will get really fresh produce and some good stories.

The Ohio City Near West Development Corporation, the creator of the project, is hoping the farm will re-energize the city, providing jobs and educational opportunities to locals as well as refugees from Bhutan, Bhurma, and Burundi (and local farmers, too)- all lofty, worthwhile goals.

Keep on truckin', Cleveland! Forget Lebron, the corruption scandals, crappy night clubs, and the population loss. You're doing great.

Ready, Set, Stockpile

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This may cost a fortune in the future...

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Last week, an international hedge fund made a huge purchase of the world's supply of chocolate (roughly 7%). That amounts to the entire European stock of cocoa.

Prices for chocolate have already risen 150% in the past two years, and should anything go wrong in luxury vacation destinations like the Ivory Coast or Nigeria, the hedge fund's purchase could exert a huge influence on the price of chocolate.

Ready, set, stockpile that chocolate and start investing in cocoa futures!