Over the weekend it was lovely to get into the garden and see my Blueberry and Blackberry coming into bloom. In fact you can just see the little blueberries starting to form. Blackberries have fond childhood memories for me as my Nanny had a huge blackberry vine growing over Gramp’s work shed. I remember very sunny summer days and purple fingers as we helped picked the blackberries for desert. I don’t actually remember what she used to make with them possibly because we used to eat our fill as we picked them!

Anyway, this prompted me to think about a tribute to berries, the idea then grew into a colour theme around purple and black fruit. I really like this combination of shades, tones and textures. As the blackberries are not quite in season yet I used frozen and loved the way that they went slightly frosted as they thawed. It just shows that our ingredients can be as beautiful as the finished dishes.