Foodie Friday - Friends, Farmer's Markets, and Piiih

As I shared with you on Monday, I had the chance to participate in a Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 meal/event. This is an event where a food blogger will present a proposal to Foodbuzz and go through a selection process. Foodbuzz selects 24 bloggers to each host a food event (24 total, obviously) in the same 24 hour period of time (hence the name 24, 24, 24).

This event was hosted by Kelly at evil shenanigans. I recently met Kelly (@bakingblog) and Marye (@MaryeAudet) both on Twitter. A month or so ago, Kelly asked if there were foodie bloggers who wanted to put together a North Texas food bloggers group to meet periodically. I was all about that and this ended up kind of being our first meeting.

We had such a wonderful time and all immediately hit it off really well. Yes, we talked about food, a LOT. But we also talked about family, work, goats, chickens all kinds of stuff.

My one regret of the evening is that, darn it, I didn't get a picture of the three of us. Ahh well. There will be other opportunities, I'm sure.

One of the main points about Kelly's proposal was to highlight some ways we can buy local here in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area. If you have not had a chance to go read Kelly's post, you can do so by clicking here. She highlights a good butcher, specialty cheese shop and talks a bit about the Dallas Farmer's Market.

So, as Marye and I decided what we were going to bring to contribute, we both tried to do local things as well. Personally, I wanted to do something fabulous with the blackberries from my back yard. It doesn't get more local than that.

I considered making a new recipe with them but was a little nervous about something I hadn't tried before. I was cooking for other foodies here, afterall. So, I put it to a vote with my family and they all voted for me to make the berry pie that we all love.

On the condition that I bring some home to share with them.

Oh, and let's be clear on how to pronounce this. We're Texan and that's not necessarily "southern," but as Texans, we love this dessert dish and have our own way of prounouncing it that might be similar to the way those in the deep south might prounounce it. It's hard to type out, but if I had to, I'd type it, "piiih." Say it with me, "piiih".

Great.

Now, I realized that I needed some additional berries to go with my oh so local blackberries, so I thought I'd take a cue from Kelly and try one of our local farmer's markets.

Yeah, right. Farmer's Market my big toe.

Sorry, but when I think of Farmer's Market, I think of the one we used to go to on Thursday and Saturday mornings in Manassas, VA near the town square. Vendors from all over the outlying areas brought in their produce and only accepted cash. A baker from Leesburg came to town and brought his fresh croissants and chocolatines (and I got to practice speaking French with him). It was a family event for us on Saturday mornings and a wonderful place to spend some time and get local products.

But what I have here in the burbs is essentially what should just be called produce markets, not farmer's markets. I went in and asked, "Where are your strawberries from?" "California." So then I asked, "Where are your blueberries from?" I think she said one of the Carolinas. Well that's a pretty big farm, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I want to support the local small business and will visit the market again, but to call it a "Farmer's Market" just seems wrong to me when they don't appear to be doing much different than the grocery stores. I'm just sayin'.

I did hear about this site called Local Harvest on Twitter, though, the other day. You can type in your zip code and find local markets in your area. I'm looking forward to exploring a little bit of what I have found there.

So, now let's get to the important stuff. The PIIIH. Say it with me, now... "PIIIH".

Great.

In short:

Make a graham cracker crust.



Grab some berries.



Make a puree, then a thickened sauce.



Let your husband who has been dealing with a garage sale lick the sauce pan with the extra sauce while the assembled pie is cooling in the refrigerator.



Make your whipped cream, top and serve.



If all of those instructions are a little to vague for you, you are welcome to go look at the recipe here.

Y'all have a great weekend, and until I see you again, make it Way More Homemade!