Raspberries ~ Framboises ~ Framboesas

watchful linzer cookies

Oh raspberry you’re beautiful, Red nectar of the season,

I think you know…You give life a reason! -anonymous

Raspberries are a very simple fruit. They don't scream for attention, one can easily devour a tiny flat and realize their pressence only upon their dissapearance. A value is truly measured when its absence is percieved stronger than its pressence. They sit humbly by the bubbly image of the strawberry, the rolly polly bouncy blue--the raspberry is a much quieter fruit, antique-like, and aged.

The many who enjoy the rasberry are usually the tired, the awake, the confused, the brave, the curious, the happy, the worried, the intelligent, the calm, the high strung, the mysterious--they are for the ones it seems, with patience, and the ones who cannot wait as well. Raspberries are timeless, though they perhaps have an age. Do you like raspberries? I do.

You have never heard of a chocolate covered raspberry. No. They are too fragile. Blackberries are much sturdier in the basket, whereas at the bottom of every raspberry basket there is found the trampled few, crushed by the weight (though measured in feathers) of those postitioned atop. One must be gentle with raspberries. Many, many small little red pearls clustered together in the formation of just one berry, they are held together by tiny tiny threads. And though it may seem only fair to be rough in reciprocity to the painful thorns you braved in their harvesting, in the end, it is just a raspberry. And if you break a raspberry to soon, you are left with an involuntary jam, which is never as sweet nor preserves as well. So do not turn them into jam until they are ready.

Raspberry jam is the most facile and classically nostalgic homemade jam. Yes i decree that such a statement is pure fact. Raspberry is easy to bottle, though difficult to imitate. One does not find such a wide array of raspberry flavored candy, soda, cereal, yadda yadda--no, raspberries look best in a yellow bowl.* (quote from my mamie)

Raspberries are rich in vitamin C, though not as rich as an orange. They are high in antioxidents, though not as high as a cranberry. They contain an astronomical percentage of fiber per weight, though not as astronomical as an apple. Medical research suggests the raspberrys combatant status in the war against cancer, diabetes, inflammation, and cognitive aging is a reson to consume daily. Though not the leading headliner in any medicinal category, the raspberry is there, present for us, and just as it is, just as itself.

Kitchen canned raspberry jam. The Salty Cod loves to can its own jams. And vegetables. And jelly. We just like to can damn it. And raspberry is the request. Toast and jam; the classic purpose on this planet for the sticky liquid candy. For the American; peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The Brit (besides toast) scones or some type of biscuit thing, the French love jam as well on toast, but also on baguette and croisant. I am sure, though no authority of, that the rest of the world eats jam as well. How do you like it. At the Salty Cod we slather jam on cookies, raspberry jam to make raspberry hearts. Sun circles as well.

Linzer cookies:
3.5 cups flour ~ 2 sticks butter ~ .5 cup light corn syrup ~ .5 cup brown sugar ~ .5 cup white sugar ~ vanilla ~ 2 eggs ~ .5 teaspoon baking soda ~ .5 teaspoon salt ~ sugar in powder ~ jam

method: cream butter and sugars. add eggs. mix. add corn syrup and vanilla. mix. add already mixed flour, salt, and baking soda. roll dough to a thinness of so so, and cut circles, cut out small circles or shapes on half. Bake until they are cooked. Spinkle the holy cookies with powder, apply jam to non-holy cookies, and then make a sandwich.


Raspberry Linzer cookies are tea-time cookies. They are always for someone else. Linzer means eyes, therefore to give a linzer cookie is to give out a bit of aide--a caring (watching) eye. Raspberries are technically a weed plant, though now they are cultivated for mass commercial harvest. If you manage to ever fill a basket, make jam. If the basket returns home empty, but the tummy returns home full, remember that there is always tomorrow. Raspberries are for everyday.

These cookies went to the hospital to help a friend in recovery. Raspberries aren't medicine, though they reminisce a tasy pill. Give your friends raspberries, as a poulet reminded me; Please help your friend when he least deserves, because that's exactly when he needs help.

for K & K

à bientôt