Berrying in Brooklyn

Amelanchier berries under the Manhattan Bridge on the East River...

I met up with Marijke here, got off at the York Street stop on the F, wandered down the cobbled streets and waited until she pulled up on her bike. Our resolution: pick enough berries for a pie. How wholseome. How American.

We moved from tree to tree - there are probably about eight; we attracted a lot less attention than I had supposed. New Yorkers studiously ignore the weird, the cracked, the unseemly. A couple of women asked us what on earth we were doing and then were brave enough to try some berries. They skipped a little afterwards, like small girls caught doing something forbidden and good. Starlings and pigeons were trying to beat us to it, but there was so much fruit we got plenty. Also plenty sticky. This is a lovely little park, complete with pebbled beach and small waves. Very good for sunset picnics, though the noise from the trains crossing the Manhattan Bridge is interesting.

Our loot in the basket of my bike. The same bike that Marijke rode all over the city, so much so that we wore through the back tyre. OK: it was an old tyre.

The pie later at Natalie's. The weird thing was that it smelled of almond essence, or marzipan, as we were eating it, and I'd added none. Reading up on it later, the wood and leaves of the tree contain quite a lot of cyanide...The pastry was Molly Bolt's (famous in our family for the apple pie recipe we still use). Anyway - we're all alive.